I am always looking for a good recipe for “snack” ideas. My husband is a huge snacker, and when I am not home and he is, I NEED to leave snacks out for him, so he doesn’t go hungry.
Piroshki (little pies filled with either ground meat, mashed potatoes, or sauteed cabbage) is a perfect snack in our culture. It works great as either breakfast, snack or lunch matter of fact. They take longer than an average snack to make, but are divine once out of the oven and can last 3-4 days, depending on how many you make.
So to make a long story short, on Monday I decided that I must absolutely try and make this fun version of piroshki, or Turkish Pogacha ( I got the initial recipe from HERE ). But I made some changes to it, to fit better into my time and ingredients. It started a bit disappointing, because my dough starter just wouldn’t work. I had to try to start it 2 times. In the end, I just gave up and decided to let it be and see what happens. The dough came together eventually, but was not as fluffy and soft as I suspect it should have been.
For the dough: 3 cups of flour 1 packet of active dry yeast ½ cup warm milk 1 egg ½ cup plain whole fat yogurt 1 tsp salt ½ cup olive oil Warm the milk in the microwave for just under 1 minute. Sprinkle the yeast over the milk, mix **this is where I had problems, the yeast would just stick together and not dissolve**. Ideally the yeast and milk mixture will mix well. Leave it in a warm place and it should foam up. In a large bowl, combine the flour and salt. Make a well in the middle and add the egg, yogurt and olive oil. Mix everything together carefully (i did it with a wooden spoon and a whisk) until it comes together. What the dough should be is slightly sticky and soft. Mine was a bit rough, so I ended up adding cold water little by little until it came together. Leave the dough to rise in a warm place. The best way to do so, done by generations of women in my family, is to cover the bowl with plastic wrap and the wrap the bowl with a large towel or even a thin throw/blanket ( i know it sounds weird, but it works in keeping the bowl hence the dough warm). Check the dough in about 1 hour, it should be twice the size, soft to touch and ready to go. For the filling: 1 ½ cup feta cheese 1 tbs dill chopped 1 tbs green onion chopped The filling for these is pretty easy. You can either use actual crumbled feta cheese bought that way from the store, or if you eat feta like we do at home (very often), you can just crumble it yourself with your hands or a fork. Chop the dill and green onion and add it to the feta mixture. That’s all! Assembling: Once the dough is ready to go, divide it into equal pieces. Depending on what size you want your little pies to be, the dough should yield 8-12 even sized pieces. Roll each piece into a ball, flatten it with a palm of your hand and what I did was use a rolling pin to flatten it even more. This is because my dough was not as soft, so it took some effort for it to become flat enough. Take a spoonful of the filling, place it in the middle of the dough and close the two corners by pinching it together. Place the pie on its side, with the seam facing to the side (do not lay it seam down). Repeat. Preheat the oven to 375. Crack an egg and separate the yolk. Use the yolk to brush over all the pies. At this point, you can also use poppy seeds and sprinkle them over the pies, for pure decoration. At this point the pies are ready to go into the oven. Bake them for about 20 minutes, until both the top and the bottom are golden brown. Take them out of the oven, and let them cool. Enjoy with some tea 🙂Piroshki with Feta, Dill and Green Onion
azerigirlcooks.com 