If you haven’t tucked into a plate of then this is your chance to raise your dumpling stakes. They’re to Russians what tortellini are to Italians - thin white flour dough filled with minced meat and onion - an adaptation of the Chinese or close relative of the Ukrainian and Polish . While it mightn't look as quirky as Russia’s or their , it is the country's very own soul food and you can expect almost every family to have their own spin on this classic.
It is said to have burst onto the dumpling scene from Siberia in the , before spreading across Russia and into Eastern Europe. Meaning “ear bread”, because of its shape, the name pelmeni comes from the original dish prepared by the indigenous from the Ural Mountains.
Pelmeni is a very simple dish so the quality of every ingredient must be high - get that right and half the job is done.
While boiled dumplings weren’t new to Russia’s food scene (were already heavy in circulation), pelmeni symbolised cost-effective food preservation and tradition. It was said that frozen pelmeni was carried by Siberian hunters on longer trips and during the harsh cold weather conditions. Pelmeni fit the bill perfectly and they were made in large batches that could be frozen (typically in the snow during the winter) without compromising on quality or flavour and were an easy dish to cook and have on-hand.
Author Lesley Chamberlain describes the life and times of making pelmeni in Siberia within her book, The Food and Cooking of Russia. “It is said that whole villages still turn out one afternoon before the onset of winter to make a vast batch of pelmeni. The women make the dough and chop the meat, the men do the folding. For their exacting work, the latter enjoy a glass of vodka every hundredth pelmeni. […] The villagers have an immediate feast after their work, with which ice-cold vodka is obligatory. The rest of the pelmeni is deep-frozen in goatskin bags in the snow.”
Sydney 's head fermenter and pelmeni pro, Jaimee Edwards runs her own special pelmeni workshop, that celebrates her love of this dish, and is a homage to the generations of her family making and eating it in the Russian community of northern China. It is in these workshops that Edwards shares her family recipe and tips. Edwards’s grandmother and mother came to Australia in the 1950s, “Back in those days the Russian community was centred around Strathfield and because, most of the foods my grandmother grew up with weren’t so readily available here she made everything from scratch – fermenting her own vegetables, making her own cheese from scratch and also brewing her own kvass (a fermented beverage made from rye bread),” Edwards tells SBS.
Pelmeni also did the rounds during her childhood. “My grandmother and aunties made pelmeni for as long as I can remember. Mostly during Russian Easter as part of a larger festive spread that includes an array of salads, brawn and herring as well as traditional Easter desserts like with pashka. We ate pelmeni as if it were a competitive sport – literally by the hundreds!”
The way to tackle pelmeni is in three parts; the dough, the filling and the finish.
The dough should be rolled quite thin, kneaded until elastic and no longer sticky – which means a delicate and patient hand is required. Definitely don’t rush it otherwise you run the risk of tearing or not securing your filling properly prior to cooking. Freeze them raw and cook them to order.
Traditionally, is filled with a mixture of minced beef, lamb, and pork with pepper, garlic and onion. “You MUST use fatty meat,” says Edwards, who cannot stress the importance of using fatty, ethically produced free-range meat. “Pelmeni is a very simple dish so the quality of every ingredient must be high - get that right and half the job is done”.
Boiling them doesn’t take long. Simply cook them in hot water or a meaty broth for 5-10 minutes before serving them with lashings of sour cream, melted butter, mayo, vinegar or mustard. Alternatively, you can pan-fry them for that ultra-crisp golden brown dough or serve them in a potage like a Chinese dumpling soup.
Pelmeni is available to purchase frozen from Russian or European speciality stores and supermarkets, or if you decide to go down the then make sure you have a bottle of vodka on standby because after rolling your hundredth pelmeni, you would've earned it.
Whichever route you go down, make sure it's a hefty serve for full effect.
