Vareniki

Ukrainian Vareniki (boiled dumplings)

Sofiya is crazy about traditional Ukrainian dishes, each family keeps secret recipes, you’re family so here are our secrets…

Little parcels of goodness, soft to bite into then a flavour explosion… the fillings vary according to season and mood, this time we have made two savoury variants and one sweet but we only managed to shoot the making of the cherry ones (no worries — they’re pretty simple)

Potato & Cheese

Aubergine & Onion

Sour Cherry

Like all traditional cooking this involves a little handiwork, we did everything from scratch as we prefer fresh, however there are some possible shortcuts (we will mention these)

Pastry

Here is a shortcut, you could buy some pre-made pastry, but for those that prefer the craft of making here is your pastry recipe, amounts are approximate as it depends on your flour how things will work out

Take the oil and pour into a large bowl

Add the flour

Add salt & sugar

Add warm water

Lightly sprinkle flour on a clean work surface, we are going to make a mess…

Once you’ve mixed your pastry with a spoon to get everything combined you will want to get it to a crumbly consistency — tip the contents of the bowl out onto your work surface.

Knead the dough with the palms of your hand until a smooth consistency has been achieved, the dough should not feel sticky or too floury.

Some people allow the dough to rest a bit before using it, generally we do because we make the pastry first then do the fillings

Whilst the pastry is resting we can make some fillings

Potato & Cheese

Peel your potatoes and boil for 30 mins in salty water

Drain well

Grate the cheese

Mix them together adding salt and black pepper to taste

Aubergine & Onion

Chop onions nice and small, to avoid crying wash your hands in cold water first and lean back from the chopping board

Dice aubergines into 0.5cm cubes

Fry onions and aubergines in a pan until brown

Once the fillings have cooled enough to be handled with fingers make the pastry cases

Roll the pastry out into a fat sausage on a lightly floured surface

Cut thin slices off the sausage to make the individual pastry cases

Flour the pastry cases both sides

Add the filling in the middle of the pastry case (not overfilling)

Pinch the two sides together to make parcels

Twist them to form round Vareniki

To cook the Vareniki add them to a big pan of boiling water and cook for 4 minutes

When they’re cooked you might decide you want them even tastier, if you do you can fry them in butter until they’re crispy on the outside — this is how we did the added extra: Pierogi… these are essentially larger dumplings that are fried for about 5 mins each side and not boiled

We sprinkle powdered sugar over the Pierogi using our coffee grinder to crind the sugar fine, icing sugar will do the same thing…

These are the finished pierogi… careful how you bite in the cherry juice will shoot everywhere… just don’t wear white!