Delicious dumplings that bring back so many great memories. One of the traditional Russian dishes, made with simple dough and minced meat.

We used to gather as a family on the weekend and prepare a whole bunch of meat dumplings and mashed potato filled dumplings. They can be frozen as well, for later use.

There are two key aspects in preparation of a great dumpling: the dough and the properly spiced filling. Therefore it might take a couple of tries to get it right. With this dough recipe, you will get the perfect dough for the dumplings, the filling however is up to your taste.

Start with preparing the dough, as it will need to stand for about 20 minutes, before it is ready for use.

In a medium/large mixing bowl add the flour. Make a well in the middle and add salt and an egg. Start mixing the ingredients, and slowly start adding the cold water, as you mix.

After the water, add the oil. Continue mixing, scrapping off the sides as needed. Somewhere in the middle, you can put the spoon aside and use your hands to make the dough.

Mix until you get a smooth ball of dough. It will be smooth and elastic.

Cover the dough with a towel and allow to stand for 15-20 minutes before using. This will help the gluten in the flour to break apart and incorporate into the dough.

After the dough stood for about 20 minutes, take it out from the bowl onto a work surface, without any flour.

While the dough is staying, prepare the meat filling as below.

Prepare the meat filling: in a medium bowl combine the minced meat, shredded onion, salt and pepper.

Mix until well combined. Set aside until needed.

Assemble the dumplings: on a slightly floured surface, roll out about ⅓ of the dough into a thin circle. The dough is very elastic, so you can make the circle very very thin.

I used cookie cutter to cut out even circles. If you do not have cookie cutters, then you can do it the old fashioned way. Take 1/3 of the dough, roll it into a thin sausage, about 2 cm in diameter. Cut it into 2×2 cm pieces and dip each piece into flour, to cover the sticky part. Roll out each piece to a thin circle.

Place about 1 teaspoon of meat filling in the middle of the small rolled out circle.

With your fingers, bring the edges of the dough together and press, to close all of the gaps. Make sure that there are no fissures. The dough should not be too stretched out, and no meat should be showing through.

After you closed all the gaps, you end up with something like a half moon shape. With your fingers take the two edges and press them together. You will end you with a little round pillow. Like in the photo below.

Place the prepared dumpling onto a floured board or sheet, and cover with towel. This will prevent the dough to dry out while you prepare the remaining dumplings. Repeat with the rest of the dough and meat.

If you do not wish to cook them now, or not going to cook all 100 of them, you can freeze them. To freeze the dumpling, place the board or sheet that they are on, in the freezer, as it is. Let them stay there for at least an hour. Then just transfer them to a storage bag and place back in the freezer. This way, you will make sure they don’t stick to each other in the bag, and will be easier to separate when ready to cook them.

To cook the dumplings: bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Once boiling, start adding the dumplings, one by one, making sure they don’t stick to each other. You can also add a bit of vegetable oil to the boiling water.

Cook the dumplings for about 10 minutes or until they all rise to the surface of the water. You can also take one out, cut a bit of the dough off and see if the dough is cooked through at the thickest part.

Using a holed spoon to fish the dumplings out of the boiling water and into a large serving bowl, toss with a bit of butter and serve hot.

Garnish with some parsley and sour cream.

Enjoy!

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