Pirozhki

Pirozhki is one of the January recipes from The Book of Buns by Jane Mason given out on the Facebook page.  Again I felt that nervous mental tremor when I am about to do something out of my comfort zone.  So for me, feeling the pressure to keep up with the bakes has led me to making some very delicious bakes that I would have otherwise missed out on.

Even Mr S laughed at me when I said what was in them...what two carbohydrates?  I tend to have that rule when planning meals, for example we never have chips and bread and butter.  Now I know there are people for whom fish and chips are just not right without the bread and butter, and maybe making a 'butty' at the end of the meal.   But then I guess if your total carbohydrate input does not increase, ie each portion is small that is OK.  If fact maybe I have been missing something all these years!

The dough is made up with milk and eggs, so is fairly nutritious.

The filling in this recipe is along the lines of a Polish Pirozhki, though I read with interest Jane's comments that these are found all over Eastern Europe, Central Asia and into Greece, and there must be so many types of different fillings.  My little addition to the filling recipe of onions, potatoes and dill were some extra dill seeds.  I so love the flavour of dill.

You just roll out small portions of the dough, and gather it up around the filling,  and leave to rest, seam side down.  I used a little semolina flour on the outside, as I like its grittiness. After resting again, into the frying pan.

I used just sufficient oil to stop sticking, and used two frying pans at a time.  You really need to leave room or they will stick together.  There were four pan fulls.

I felt the edges needed a little more cooking...so balanced them..

I allowed some to cool ready for chilling.

 The rest were taken to the Monday evening art class, where colour was the theme of the day.  On Tuesday I reheated some to have with a big bowl of soup for lunch.  Really different and delicious.

We made our own colour wheel, and then a still life.  I chose some lovely tulips from a huge bunch, and a lovely art deco vase.  I chose to use a naive style...this allowed a little time to play...