Last semester as I was spending more time with my boyfriend, I ended up cooking for him a few times. He, in turn, wanted to cook for me. The day we had planned to do it on, a blizzard hit Kzoo and like hell if I was going outside to go shopping for ingredients, so I made something out of my cupboard instead. Now that I am back in this lovely city, he decided to make something for me. There is one little problem, he gets cooking in THEORY but has very little practice, so it turned into group cooking.
He quite enjoys Russia, and Russian history, so picked Pelmeni, a Russian dumpling/meat pie thingamajig. It was quite tasty. I shall provide the quantities we used, but beware that we had WAY more filling than we had dough for. I also had never made these, and I fudged some of the recipes we used, so these might not be accurate…
Pelemi
1 onion, minced
1 lb ground pork
1 lb ground beef
Salt and Pepper (lots of pepper!!)
Saute the onions until soft, I use a not particularly correct method. As they brown I add water. This makes mushier onions, which I prefer because I hate their texture and love their flavor. Feel free to not do this. Brown the meat in the pan with the onions, add salt and pepper to taste. Drain the fat.
2 1/2 Cups flour
3 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 tbsp canola oil
Salt
So, this dough originally called for 2 cups of flour and a cup of milk. I’m going to tell you right now, that is a bad idea. It will create a dough much to sticky to work with. Combine the ingredients in a bowl or in a shallow volcano on your lovely counter top. Work into a stretch elastic dough. Roll into snakes about 1 in in diameter, and cut eat roll into 1 in pieces. I squished them into circles with my hand. One place suggested a glass bottom. Whatevs.
Fill the circles with the meat, wetting the edge of half the circle and fold into a half moon shape. Take care to not overfill. Otherwise they might explode. Into a horrible DOOM MESS OF FILLINGS!!!!! We managed to avoid this. We deep fried our meat pockets in about a 1/4 in of oil over medium heat. Flip to brown/cook both sides.
Serve with whatever condiments you like. The Joel preferred a combination of mustard and ketchup. The Roomie like ketchup and miracle whip, I do believe. I could be high, I can’t quite remember. He came home after we had eaten and didn’t eat with us. I liked either BBQ or ketchup and that tangy zip.
So, The Joel cooking may have turned into a cooking lesson for him. But it is all good, as was the food.
I'll Domesticate You! 