Baking Piroshki

On a rainy day,  my mom, dad,  siblings, and I baked piroshki (p•rosh•kee).  My Russian grandma gave us the recipe, and this was the first time we made them. My grandma only makes piroshki on special occasions because it takes a long time to make. Since it was a rainy day,  we had a lot of free time to bake piroshki. Here are the ingredients:

To make the dough:

•  2 cups of flour
• 35 ml of vegetable oil
• 1 cup of milk
• 1 package of yeast
• 1/2 tsp of sugar
• 1/2 cup of water
• pinch of salt

 To make the stuffing:

• ground chicken, turkey or beef
• 1 onion
• salt 
• pepper

To make our dough, we first emptied a package of dried yeast into half a cup of warm water. We added in the sugar, mixed it up and let it stand for 20 minutes. We waited until the yeast grew to the very top of the cup.

Yeast when we first put it in the cup

Yeast after it has risen.

Next, we sifted two cups of flour into a bowl.  Then we added salt, oil, milk and yeast, and mixed everything together until we had dough. We covered the dough and put it into the warm oven to rise for half an hour.

Sifting the flour

The dough before it rose in the oven

While the dough was in the oven, my dad ground chicken and onion through a meat grinder.  Next, he fried the meat and onions together with salt and pepper in a pan. This will be the stuffing for the piroshki.

Meat and Onions

Frying the meat

When the dough had risen, we took a piece of the dough and rolled it out. Remember, always put flour and then roll out the dough or else it will stick to the board and you will not be able to take it off. Next, we took a cup and pressed it into the dough to make an even circle. Then we put a little meat into the rolled out dough, and we folded it up into a small round piroshki. We put them onto the baking sheet into even rows.  After the piroshki were on the tray, we took an egg and beat it up in a small bowl.  Then we got a brush and we basted the piroshki with the egg so it would turn a nice brownish color when they were in the oven.

1. Taking the risen dough out of the oven

2. Rolling the dough

3. Putting the meat on the piroshki

4. Folding the piroshki

5. Basting the Piroshki with egg

We baked them in the oven until golden brown at 350˚ F. While the piroshki were baking in the oven, the house smelled delicious.

What do you like to bake on a rainy day?