Now let’s cook
Pirozhki are fried or baked. Here their cabbage and mushroom filling is sealed in egg pasta and boiled.
Ingredients
- 300 g wheat flourground from wheat grains
- 3 eggslarge hen’s egg, about 50 g without the shell
- 300 g white cabbageordinary white cabbage: a head of pale, tightly packed leaves
- 200 g button mushroomsshop-bought button mushrooms: edible mushrooms that are grown on farms, not gathered
- 110 g onionbulb onion: the bulbs are peeled and cut
- 3 g garlicfresh garlic: the cloves are peeled and grated
- 2 tbsp vegetable oilmade from plant seeds or fruit
- 3 tbsp waterplain tap water
- 3 g saltfine table salt
- 1 g black pepperground black pepper
- 3000 ml waterplain tap water
- 30 g saltfine table salt
- 50 g butterchurned from cow’s-milk cream
- 10 g parsleyfresh parsley leaves, used as a herb
Method
Pile 300 g of flour on the table, make a well and break 3 eggs into it. Knead the dough by hand for at least 10 minutes, until it is smooth and firm. Do not taste the raw dough: it contains raw eggs. Wrap the dough in cling film and leave it on the table for 30 minutes: after resting it stops springing back and rolls out easily.
Shred and chop 300 g of white cabbage. Cut 200 g of button mushrooms into small dice and 110 g of onion (1 onion) smaller still. Chop 3 g of garlic (1 clove).
Heat 2 tbsp of vegetable oil over a medium heat in a deep frying pan with a lid. Fry the onion until it softens, then add the mushrooms and cook for another 4–5 minutes, stirring.
Add the cabbage and the garlic, pour in 3 tbsp of water and stir. Cover with the lid and stew over a low heat for 10–15 minutes, until the cabbage is soft.
Take the lid off and add 3 g of salt and 1 g of black pepper. Boil off the liquid over a high heat, stirring, until none is left in the bottom of the pan: the filling should be almost dry. Move it to a plate and let it cool completely.
Divide the dough in two. Roll each half out on a floured work surface into a sheet 1–1.5 mm thick: the sheet should be see-through but not tear.
On one sheet, put teaspoons of filling, 4 cm apart. Brush the dough between the mounds with water, cover with the second sheet and press it down around each mound, working from the middle outwards: air left inside will split the dough in the pan. Cut into squares and press the edges with a fork.
Bring 3 l of water to the boil in a wide pot and add 30 g of salt.
Lower the ravioli into the boiling water in small batches so that they have room to move, and stir gently at once. Cook until they rise to the surface, then for 4 more minutes: at least 74 °C in the dough. Lift them out with a slotted spoon.
Melt 50 g of butter in a frying pan, add 10 g of chopped parsley and tip in the ravioli. Warm them through for 30 seconds, tossing, and serve at once.
