Let’s just say, this guy I know returned from a wonderful vacation sailing down some river in Russia. So he sends me a recipe for something I know a bit about , but created a spark of discovery in me. I grabbed my old book (in English) on Classic Russian cooking and came up with a few ideas. (Click on the picture on the left)
Pizza Pirogs or Pirozhkis!
Classic Russian Cooking has been making a revival. Thanks to the foresight of some great people the book “A gift to Young Housewives” by Elena Molokhovets has been translated and an English version is available entitled “Classic Russian Cooking.”
Pirogs (stuffed Pastry) are usually round although Elena preferred triangular shaped versions. She also used butter and eggs in her dough but was very careful to cut back and keep the total amount of liquids static relative to the flour level.
One of the wonderful things about this book is ferreting out the exact recipes which are no easy task even with all of the superb guidance of Joyce Toomre. It is like following your superbly culinary trained grandmother in the kitchen as she grabs handfuls of this an that while she prepares something mysterious that only materializes into a recognizable form on completion!
How much is a ‘glass’ of this or that? The answer is that it is ½ lb. A little memory of ‘a pint’s a pound the world around’ and you know she is talking about a cup! To the purest this may seem like blasphemy, but this is the way to really learn how to cook with the courage to meet your successes and the willingness to be less successful.
One of our friends recently sent a recipe for ‘Pirogs’ from his trip on the river in Russia. Good as it may sound, there were quite a few things that turned me off… particularly the words ‘margarine’ and ‘vegetable oil.’ This recipe seemed like an echo of the days of shortages and deprivations of the Soviet era, but this is changing. Also, in the typical tradition of Russian generalities the amount of flour called for is “enough for you to be able to roll it out easily.” Is this cryptic enough for you? My grandmother would just shrug and say, ‘simple enough.’
Elena never did anything special for the Pirozhkis dough and called for ‘whatever’ was handy. However, I have thrown in some of the spices she liked in various fillings as seasonings for the dough: pepper and dill, for example.
So in the tradition of Russian generalities and from the time of the Czars… I am working on adapting to what is popular and available… PIZZA Pirogi’s should be great!
I’ll put up a finished recipe, nutritional data, portion size and pictures soon!
Roger
