Pelmeni

What to expect

Taste

Plain and savoury, and deliberately so — this is peppery pork and beef with onion juice through it and very little else. The black pepper is the loudest seasoning and it is coarse enough to meet in individual grinds. The dough itself tastes of almost nothing, which is its job. What changes the whole bowl is the dressing: smetana is cool, thick and sour and turns it rich; butter with vinegar and pepper is sharp and much leaner, and the two are genuinely different meals.

Aroma

Boiled dough and meat, which is a mild, homely smell rather than an announcing one — pelmeni are not a dish you smell from another room. What is sharp is what goes on at the table: fresh dill, coarse black pepper and the vinegar off the jar.

Texture

Thin dough, and thin is the whole point — at 1 to 2mm it is slippery and yielding almost everywhere, with one deliberate exception at the pinched ring where the dough doubles on itself and there is real chew. Inside, the filling is soft and loose rather than compacted, and there is a distinct moment where it gives and releases liquid. The smetana adds a cold, thick smoothness over the top of all that.

Sound

Very little. The roll of the water when they go in, and the sound of a spoon in a bowl. The only sound of the making is the flour and the pin.

How the flavour moves

Butter and dough first, and for a moment it seems like a very plain mouthful. Then the dumpling gives and the broth comes out, which is the entire point of the dish and is what changes the register — suddenly it is savoury and meaty and much more than the outside suggested. Black pepper builds at the finish, and if there is smetana on the plate it cools everything down again ready for the next one. Vinegar, where it is used instead, does the opposite and sharpens the finish rather than softening it.

Serve it

Hotter than they look, and specifically hotter inside than out. The broth sealed in the middle holds heat much longer than the dough around it does, so the first one bitten straight out of the bowl will catch someone out. Served alongside a spoonful of fridge-cold smetana, which is a deliberate contrast rather than an accident.

Goes with

Smetana, or butter and vinegar with heavy black pepper — one or the other, not both. Dill. A clear broth alongside. Rye bread. In Russia the drink is vodka or kvass, and salted cucumbers are on the table more often than not.

Cook's notes

Difficulty

Easy in every individual step and long in aggregate. Sealing sixty dumplings is the work; nothing about it is difficult.

Cost

Cheap. Flour, an egg and two minces feed four generously.

Equipment

A rolling pin, a 6cm cutter or a glass, a floured tray that fits in the freezer, and a large pan — far larger than looks necessary.

When to make it

A cold afternoon with company, since sealing sixty dumplings is far better with two people than one. Cooked, they are a fifteen-minute weeknight meal from the freezer for months afterwards.

Best season

None, though the tradition is a winter one and the dish suits the weather it came from.

You know it is done when

The dough turns from opaque white to just translucent, so the dark filling shows through it. Cut one open and the filling should be evenly grey-brown with no pink anywhere, sitting in a visible pool of its own broth.

And it feels like

The dough should be tender and slippery with a little chew at the pinched ring where it doubles over, and the filling soft rather than firm — it was mixed loose with ice water and should not have set into a bouncy ball.

Food safety

The filling goes in raw, so the three minutes after the last dumpling floats are not optional. Test one by cutting it open rather than by timing alone. Keep the raw filling cold while you work, and freeze the tray promptly rather than leaving assembled dumplings standing at room temperature.

Where it goes wrong

• Lifting them out when they float, when floating only means the dough has cooked at the surface and the raw meat inside has not.
• Leaving an air pocket in the seal, which expands in boiling water and splits the dumpling so it empties into the pot.
• Rolling the dough too thick, which turns a delicate dumpling into a doughy one.
• Skipping the dough's rest, so it shrinks back under the pin faster than it can be cut.
• Letting the filling get warm, which makes it smear and turn pasty and renders the fat before it ever reaches the pot.
• Using too small a pan, so the water goes off the boil when the dumplings go in and they stick to each other and to the base.

If it does go wrong

Split dumplings and cloudy water: air was trapped in the seals, or they went in unfrozen. Doughy and heavy: the dough was rolled too thick. Dry filling with no broth: the ice water was left out, or the mince was too lean. Tearing while rolling: the dough was too slack, or it was not rested. Grey water and stuck dumplings: too little water for the quantity, or they were not stirred in the first few seconds.

Making it ahead

This is the make-ahead dish of the collection. Roll, fill, freeze and cook them across the next three months.

Keeping it

Raw, frozen, they keep 3 months in a bag once they have firmed up on the tray. Cooked, they are much less good the next day.

Reheating

Cooked leftovers are better fried in butter until crisp on both sides than reboiled — this is a standard Russian second life for them rather than a compromise.

Freezing

Freezing is the intended state. Cook them straight from frozen without thawing.

Leftovers

Fried in butter with an egg cracked over, or dropped into a clear broth.

Scaling it

Scales as far as your patience does. Cook them in batches whatever the total, since a crowded pan is what causes most of the failures.

Substitutions

The traditional Siberian filling mixes beef with pork and sometimes lamb or game, on the reasoning that no single meat gives both enough flavour and enough fat — an all-beef filling is noticeably drier. Full-fat soured cream stands in for smetana, which is thicker and less sharp. Do not substitute leaner mince: the fat is where the broth comes from.

Dietary swaps

Contains cereals containing gluten, eggs, milk from the butter and soured cream, and sulphites from the vinegar. Served with butter and vinegar rather than smetana it is dairy-free apart from the butter, and with oil instead of butter it is dairy free entirely.

Shopping for it

Mince with the fat percentages stated rather than the leanest on the shelf. Smetana from a Russian or Polish grocer if you can get it; full-fat soured cream otherwise.

Keeping the cost down

About as cheap as a meal for four gets. Buying mince with real fat in it costs less than lean mince and works considerably better here.

Sustainability

Half a kilo of mince across sixty dumplings feeding four is an efficient use of meat, and the dough carries most of the bulk.

Nutrition

Carbohydrate and protein in roughly equal weight, with the fat concentrated in the filling and whatever is added at the table.

Worth it?

Worth making once at full scale rather than repeatedly at small scale — the work is all in the sealing and the freezer does the rest.

Where it comes from

Origin

The Urals and western Siberia.

Also called

Пельмени (pelmeni).

Said out loud

pyel-MYE-nee.

What the name means

Generally derived from Komi and Udmurt pel'n'an', usually read as ear bread, for the shape of the sealed dumpling with its corners pinched into a ring. This is the accepted account rather than a proven one.

History

Pelmeni are not Slavic in origin. The form most likely reached the Urals and western Siberia from Central or East Asian dumpling traditions, the same broad family that produced manti, buuz, momo and jiaozi, and the name itself comes from the Finno-Ugric languages of the region rather than from Russian. They spread into general Russian cooking during the nineteenth century. Households in Siberia made them in large batches at the start of winter and stored them frozen outdoors in sacks, which is why they are still cooked straight from frozen rather than thawed — the freezing in this recipe is a domestic version of an outdoor larder.

Why it matters

Home and canteen food throughout Russia, Siberia and Central Asia, and sold frozen in every Russian supermarket. Pelmennaya cafes serving little else were a standard cheap eating place in Soviet cities and a number still operate. Making them is often a group activity, which is the practical answer to sixty dumplings needing sealing.

When it is eaten

Everyday food rather than occasion food, though a large batch made communally is itself an occasion.

The traditional way

Ice water beaten into raw filling so it becomes broth inside the sealed dumpling, and freezing the batch before cooking, which was originally storage and turns out also to keep the seams shut in the water.

How it changed

The freezer replaced the winter sack, and the supermarket bag replaced most home production. Little else about them has changed.

Regional variations

Fillings vary with what is local — beef and pork is standard, lamb and game appear in Siberia, and there are fish versions in the north. Pelmeni differ from vareniki in two ways: they are smaller, and their filling goes in raw where vareniki take a filling that is already cooked.

Sources and credit

No author. A regional dish with a Finno-Ugric name and an Asian ancestry.

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