Russian Piroshki Recipe

Russian Piroshki recipes are as varied as there are people who make them. A little over a decade ago, several Russian families moved into our community. One of the sons worked with my dad, and soon our whole family was friends with his whole family. The mother of that family made the most incredible borscht you could ever believe. Unfortunately, her English wasn't very good and we never did get the recipe (but I can tell you that there were no beets in it whatsoever- apparently, at least in their family, borscht was just a word for soup). However, one of the daughters became very good friends with my mother, and she used to cook for us all the time.

Her piroshki was to die for.

She taught mom how to make it, and mom taught me. The fact that we have so many inexpensive convenience foods cut down her labor considerably, and so she taught us the easy way.

You can certainly make the dough from scratch, but we've followed her lead and use Pillsbury biscuitt dough, or occasionally a cheaper brand of refridgerated dough.

This cabbage piroshki recipe is quite simple.

Ingredients:

1 or two cans refrigerated biscuit dough

1 small cabbage or half a large one (we use green cabbage, but go with your preference)

1 small to medium onion

tomato paste

salt & pepper

Garlic to taste

Directions:

Heat a skillet or wok. Slice or dice the onion. Add cooking oil to the pan and saute the onion until slightly caramelized. Shred the cabbage and add to the onions. Saute until the cabbage is just about cooked through. Add a tablespoon or two of tomato paste, fresh (chopped or grated) garlic, or some powdered garlic to taste, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix all together. The cabbage mixture should clump nicely. If it doesn't, add more tomato paste.

While the cabbage is cooling, open your can of biscuit dough. Sprinkle a little flour on your workspace, and roll out or press the dough out with your hands. Make it as thin as you can without actually puncturing the dough (even if you repair it, it won't hold together well once it's been punctured).

Cooking the Piroshki:

Scoop a spoonful of the cabbage mixture into the middle of each pressed biscuit. Fold the biscuit over the mixture so that it's a half moon shape with a bulge in the middle. Seal the dough first by pressing with your fingers, then by gently pressing into the dough with the tines of a fork or with a pastry sealer. (This isn't necessary if you make fresh dough that's sticky enough to seal well the first time around.) Take the half moon and form it into an oval by rolling between your hands or on the work space. Flatten it. You can see this done in some of the videos on this page.

Pour cooking oil into a pan (our friend always used olive oil, so we did as well), about 1/2" deep and heat to about medium heat. The oil will seem to shimmer when it's ready. Gently lay each piroshki pocket into the oil and adjust the heat as necessary. You want the oil hot enough to cook the dough through, but not hot enough that the outside burns and leaves the inside raw. It takes some practice getting to know the perfect temperature, and each stove and pan tends to be different.

Once one side seems to be finished, flip the piroshki and cook the other side. When both sides are finished, remove to a rack, brown paper bag, or paper towels to cool. Or, you can put them in a colander like the lady in the video below does.They will expand when cooking, and then collapse again when cooling.

While you obviously couldn't use this for the 7 day cabbage diet, the filling certainly would suit such a diet assuming that you lower the salt or eliminate it entirely. It would also be quite tasty over brown rice.

This potato piroshki recipe is even easier than the cabbage piroshki recipe.

Ingredients:

Mashed potatoes

Shredded cheese- whatever you prefer (we like a mixture of cheddar and mozzerella)

Caramelized onions (optional)

Directions:

This works best if you make the mashed potatoes fresh and stir the cheese and onions in while it's hot, and then let the potatoes cool before spooning into the dough. This can be done over night. One of our Russian friends always used instant mashed potatoes, she said the convenience was worth sacrificing a little taste.

Aside from this, follow the directions above in the Cabbage Piroshki Recipe for how to fill the piroshki and how to cook it.

For how to fry piroshki, I recommend reading the bottom section of my Cabbage Piroshki Recipe section. For how to bake piroshki, I can only suggest viewing the "How To Make Pirozhki" video below as our friends always fried theirs.

As for fillings, you really can use any filling that you want. Ground beef and onions is popular, fruit fillings are great for a dessert. Sauteed vegetables, ground lamb, even rice mixtures will all work equally well. For a point of reference, a piroshki is basically a pocket pie. Nearly every country and culture has their own version. Pierogies are the same idea, but made with pasta instead of bread dough. Pasties are a UK version using pie crust. A cinnamon roll dough would make a fabulous dessert piroshki. Seriously, I just thought of that, and now I want to try it...

I used to make both the cabbage and the potato piroshki at the same time, and when I had just a little of each left over, I'd mix them together and make a cabbage and potato piroshki. Everyone but my mother prefered those over the separate versions.

It may or may not be authentic, but it's a lot of fun to invent your own piroshki recipes.