Pelmenu/Vareniku

When I was a little girl, my mom would buy pelmenu (like dumplings filled with meat) from a grocery store. I liked them boiled and pan fried. When I moved to the US the only way that I can satisfy my craving for pelmenu is to make them myself. I was too chicken to follow the recipe with Russian measurement by myself, so I waited for my mom to come over and we made pelmenu together. Ohhhhhh…the homemade pelmenu taste sooooooooo much better than store bought.

Ingredients:

3 drinking cups of flour (In Belarus we do not have measuring cups, thus we use any drinking cup. We then use the same cup to measure the rest of the ingredient in proportion)
¾ of the same drinking cup of fridge chilled water
2 eggs
salt to taste
ground beef/turkey
finely chopped onion (to taste)

Add salt to the flour then lightly beaten eggs and water

Then let your hands go to work and start mixing all the ingredients together until the dough is no longer sticking to your hands.


Once the dough ball is formed, cover it with a lightly wet napkin and let is rest of 30 minutes.


While you are waiting on the dough, mix finely chopped onions and ground beef together in a bowl.

When the dough is ready, cut a little piece of the dough and roll it out.

Using a cup, stamp circles and fill the circles with meat mixture.

Then using your fingers connect the ends of the circle together to keep pelmenu from opening up when cooked.


You can either cook all pelmenu right away or freeze them. We made enough for me to freeze several batches.

When you ready to cook pelmenu, fill up the pot with water and let is come to a boil. Drop fresh/frozen pelmenu and let them cook for approximately 7 minutes. Serve them hot with melted butter or you can deep them in a sour cream. I prefer melted butter.



While we were making pelmenu, we used the same dough and made vareniku (dumpling filled with fruit). The process is the same, only you fill the dough with spoonful of berries and half a spoon of sugar. Boil vareniku and eat while they are hot.

Hope you will enjoy it!