Now let’s cook
Pirozhki with cabbage and egg, baked rather than fried. Just one more, please.
Ingredients
- 10 g dry yeastbaker’s yeast, dried, which raises the dough
- 50 ml waterplain tap water
- 40 g sugarwhite granulated sugar
- 500 g wheat flourground from wheat grains
- 250 ml milkcow’s milk
- 50 g butterchurned from cow’s-milk cream
- 4 g saltfine table salt
- 600 g white cabbageordinary white cabbage: a head of pale, tightly packed leaves
- 40 g butterchurned from cow’s-milk cream
- 3 g saltfine table salt
- 1 g black pepperground black pepper
- 30 g dillfresh dill leaves, used as an aromatic seasoning
- 4 eggslarge hen’s egg, about 50 g without the shell
- 1 egglarge hen’s egg, about 50 g without the shell
- 1 tbsp waterplain tap water
Method
Stir the dry yeast into 50 ml of warm water with the sugar and a spoonful of the flour. Cover and leave for 15 minutes.
Warm the milk until lukewarm, not hot, and melt the butter for the dough.
Sift the flour into a mound, make a well in the middle, pour in the yeast and add the salt. Work in the milk as you mix the dough, add the cooled butter at the end and knead until smooth and elastic.
Roll the dough into a ball, cover it and leave it somewhere warm for 1 hour. Then knock it down and let it rise for another 40 minutes.
While the dough rises, shred the cabbage finely, cover it with boiling water for 5 minutes and drain it in a colander. Fry it in the butter until soft and golden, season with salt and pepper and stir in the chopped dill. Let the filling cool.
Hard-boil 4 eggs until both the white and the yolk are firm. Cool the eggs, dice them finely and mix them into the cabbage.
Divide the dough into balls the size of a table-tennis ball and roll each into a flat round. Put a tablespoon of filling in the middle and pinch the edges shut. Set the pirozhki seam side down on a tray lined with parchment, 2 cm apart, cover them and leave them to prove for 15 minutes.
Heat the oven to 180 °C. Beat the egg with a spoonful of water, brush the pirozhki with it and bake for 15 minutes, until they turn golden brown, then cool them on a rack.
Where this dish comes from
Pirozhki (singular pirozhok) are small filled buns of dough that are baked or fried. The name is a diminutive of pirog, “pie”. They are found across Eastern European cuisine, not only in Russia. Common savoury fillings include cabbage, boiled egg with spring onions, minced meat, mashed potato and mushrooms.
