Piroshki/пирожки (stuffed baked pastries)

Piroshki/пирожки (stuffed baked pastries)

I’ve been wanting for years to make some piroshki. My dad is quite the master at them and I must admit in comparison this recipe needs practise! Here are some with the usual fillings we used to have them with - potato filled ones and apple filled ones.

Piroshki are lovely tokens of my childhood. Eating them reminds me of all those times there’d be a day of baking where I would help by using our little red piroshki pressing mould thing to make them into their identical shapes. This was followed by an evening of sitting under a blanket, eating warm freshly baked piroshki with minted tea, and watching the Alien trilogy in the dark.

This post is in with others in the nostalgia thing - the pryaniki and gribnie kotlety.

Ingredients:

- 2.5 cups flour

- ½ cup warm water (or dairy free milk)

- 1 packet/1 tbsp yeast

- 2-3 tbsp oil/melted butter

Fillings:

- 3 small potatoes, peeled

- 1-2 tbsp butter

- 1/3 dairy free milk

- 1 small onion

- Herbs & Spices (to taste); parsley, pepper, thyme, coriander, salt

or

- 1 apple, finely chopped

- 1 tbsp butter

- 1/3 cup sugar (or to taste)

- Cinnamon

1. To make the dough: dissolve yeast in warm water (or milk). Let stand until frothy and bubbley. Add flour and oil to this and mix. The dough should be very soft but not sticky - let stand then for 1-2hours or until about double in size.

2. Make the potato filling if using - boil potatoes until very soft. Mash them and add the rest of potato filling ingredients in. For apple filling mix the finely chopped apples with the rest of ingredients.

3. Once dough has risen, roll it out into a long snake shape. Divide into balls approximately 2 handfuls big (or smaller if preferred).

4. Roll each ball into an oval/round shape. Place stuffing in middle and fold in half, making sure they’re closed at the sides - you can use a press thing here if you have one.

5. Brush each pastry with dairy free milk for that golden shine. Put in oven at 180˚ for 20mins or until golden.

Enjoy with some tea on the sofa : )