Pirozhki

Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆

Time: about 2 hours

This is a Russian baked dough … thing, you can put many kinds of fillings inside. This variation was passed on to me from a good friend.

Ingredients

• 1 cup warmed milk
• ½ tbsp white sugar
• ½ tbsp active dry yeast
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 egg
• ½ tsp salt
• 3 cups flour
• ½ tbsp butter
• salt & pepper to taste

Guidelines

Put ¼ cup of milk in a cup, stir sugar in, sprinkle yeast in, and leave it for 10 minutes until yeast gets foamy.

In a big bowl pour the leftover milk and add the butter, egg, salt, and ½ cup of flour.

Add the yeasty mixture and stir up.

Mix ½ cup of flour each time until it becomes unsticky dough.

Cover this bowl with the dough loosely (such as with a teacloth) and put it in a warm place where it can rise for 1 hour.

On a floured surface roll the risen dough gently into a log about 5 cm broad, cut 2−3 cm chunks off and roll them into balls.

Set the oven to 200°C.

Flatten the balls by hand to about the size of your palm about 10 cm wide.

Now you lay your chosen filling in these disks of dough.* Fold dough in half over the filling and pinch the edges together to wrap them.

Lay aluminium foil over a baking tray and place each raw pirozhki on that, but leave some room between them so they can grow.

Bake for 20 minutes in the oven, or until they’re golden brown.

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* Pirozhki can be sweet or savoury. Dates are good for sweet ones, and curried potatoes are nice for savoury ones.