One of the main dishes of Russian national cuisine is pies. On the tables of our ancestors, they occupied an honorable place, which was reflected in many proverbs and sayings. The most famous of them says that any hut is not red with corners, but with its treats, and pies in particular. In our culinary there is a considerable number of subspecies of this wonderful dish. For example, coulibiacs.
Dish history
The recipes for most Russian dough products have come to us almost in their original form, retaining their specific features. These are, perhaps, the only dishes that escaped foreign influence. Moreover, many of them (for example, a kulebyak with fish, meat or vegetables), on the contrary, were transferred from Russia to Europe and became the subject of admiration for gourmets of almost the whole world. The first information about this type of pies dates back to the distant 12th century. In ancient sources, it was noted that they were eaten by both noble boyars and ordinary peasants or artisans. At that time, usually, a cake was prepared with fish, eggs, onions, mushrooms - all together, these fillings filled one pie, making it in different layers. And much later, when foreign cooks began to cook the Russian nobility, they began to put turkey meat, rabbit meat, game, and rice as mincemeat. By and large, it was the kulebyak with fish, along with kalach, pies, sterlet soup and pancakes with caviar that became the symbol of Russian hospitality and national cuisine. No wonder Russian writers described it with such enthusiasm!
Description Kulebyaki
What is a kulebyak with fish and other forcemeat? In fact, this is a product made of dough, yeast or puff, where a heterogeneous filling is placed. It is laid in layers, and thin pancakes are used as the boundaries between them, they are also henchmen. So we get the original pies in the pie. Such a kulebyak is usually made elongated, during baking it is shaped like a horseshoe, and served sliced across the portioned pieces onto the table. Thanks to this, everyone who eats a dish has the opportunity to try all types of toppings. If it is prepared from yeast dough, it turns out to be more rich than from puff pastry. As for the minced meat, it is usually, as a rule, ready.
Kulebyaka fish: dough for baking
So, let's start cooking. The first thing that interests us is a kulebyaka with fish. Her photo looks very tempting and appetizing. And the taste, believe me, is not worse! Let's start with the test. Let it be puff, in compliance with traditional technologies. Take a pound of flour, sift it. Mix half with chopped butter (or baking margarine - 400 g). Knead, roll into a square about 2 cm thick and put in the refrigerator. Dilute the second part of the flour with water (half a cup), add the juice of half a lemon (you can use acid), pour a teaspoon of salt. Knead the elastic dough, roll into a ball and leave to "rest", insist. Cover with a clean towel. After half an hour with a rolling pin, roll out a square larger in size (two times) than the one in the refrigerator. Then put the cooled square on the freshly cooked one, cover and roll it in a 1 cm thick strip. Carefully fold it with an "accordion" and place it again in a cold place. After half an hour, repeat the operation, rolling out the dough and cooling again. After three manipulations, the puff pastry is suitable for food processing.
Kulebyak with fish: make a layer
Puff up the cloisters - there should be 2 more of them than the number of types of filling, and also about 2 goes to one layer. Try to make pancakes as thin as possible. It is enough to brown them only on one side, you can not turn them over to the second, but immediately put them on a plate.
Kulebyaka fish: preparing the filling
Now the filling. Since we have a recipe for kulebyaki with fish, you will need: boiled sturgeon, sliced, pieces of salted herring, smoked salmon and other varieties you have. In general, for a pie of this type, salty red fish, fresh, whole, is ideally suitable. And even dried. According to the rules of culinary, “royal” red salty is placed between layers of buckwheat porridge or rice. Chunks should be thin, otherwise the taste will be too saturated. If the fish is fresh red, then the forcemeat between it should consist of a mixture of fried onions, chopped eggs, a handful of rice porridge, seasoned with salt and hot pepper. If you take the fish fillet, it is placed entirely on the layer and be sure to sprinkle with spices. You can arrange the filling with rings of raw onions.
How to bake a cake with fish
Well, actually, the cooking technology. Divide the dough into pieces - according to the number of pies that you will bake. From them, roll out the layers with a thickness of 1 cm, a width of 20, and a length of 60 cm (the approximate size of your baking sheet). Gently place the dough on a waffle towel. Put the plaques on it, from above - the first type of filling, cover with pancakes, and do this until the whole stuffing is over. When the cake is full, try to press the edges of the cladding down so that the filling does not spill out. Now tighten the loose sides of the dough and pinch them. Oil a baking sheet and gently transfer the pie onto it. And beat the beaten egg on a coulibia. Give it a specific shape and leave it warm for half an hour - the dough will still rise. Before going to the oven, re-grease with an egg and pierce at the ends with the sharp edge of a knife so that steam comes out of the kulebyaki. Bake for about 45 minutes at a temperature of 230-245 degrees. Wait for the dish to brown well. To prevent it from burning, cover the “fried” places with foil or paper, which you need to moisten on the front side. Before serving, cut into pieces. Serve with the ear.
Kulebyak with poultry
The next culinary delight that we will delight you with is a kulebyaka with chicken. It is baked from yeast dough. To knead it, take: flour - 600 g, butter - a pack (200 g), 3 egg yolks, a glass of milk, a little yeast (25 g), a spoonful of salt. Dissolve the yeast in warm milk, add half the flour, knead, let rise. Then add the rest of the ingredients, knock it well and leave it again so that the volume doubles. After that you can roll out under the cake. The filling is prepared in the following order: boil the chicken meat in salted water with spices until almost ready. Then remove from the bones and cut into thin slices. Boiled offal is also placed in this kulebyak. Throw them in a colander, cool, chop and fry with onions. Hard boil a few eggs (depends on the volume of the filling and the number of pies). Chop, mix with frying. Lay the giblets in layers on the dough sheets and cover their fillet on top. Bake as described in the first recipe. Serve the pie with broth, soup, cabbage soup, pickle. A coulibiack with potatoes is prepared on the same principle.
Mushroom Baking
Flour products with mushroom filling are a true delicacy, amazingly delicious, a real table decoration. Minced meat is made from both salty and fresh and dried gifts of the forest. If a kulebyak with salted mushrooms is prepared, they are finely cut, mixed with fresh onion and vegetable oil, spread on pancakes, layers, and the dish is baked until cooked. When dried mushrooms are taken for minced meat, they are first boiled. Then finely chopped, add onions, a little crumbly buckwheat or rice porridge. Minced meat is fried, seasoned with ground pepper and garlic. And finally, the mushrooms are fresh. A wonderful filling is prepared in this way: chop them large, put in a cast iron and simmer for about two hours in a small amount of oil, but without water. Crumble the parsley, add a little allspice. Then add salt, pepper, pour a few chopped hard-boiled eggs and pour sour cream. Let the roast still stand a little on the fire, but it should be a little liquid in consistency. Let the minced meat cool, and then stuff the pies with it!
Kulebyaka with meat
All types of kulebyak - the dishes are very hearty. This is especially true of those that are made with meat filling. It is prepared from beef, lamb, pork, liver, with the addition of various components and, of course, spices. How to bake kulebyaka with meat? The test recipe is already known to you. We discuss the intricacies of the filling. Since a cake is being prepared from already almost edible minced meat, the meat should be pre-cooked until soft. Then cut it into small pieces, either for a roast or a stew. Melt lard in a cast iron or in a pan, chop a lot of onions. Put the meat there, add some garlic, chopped steep eggs, seasoning and spices. In order to keep the contents of the finished kulebyaki from dough and such minced meat more tender, in the old days the housewives acted like this. When the cake was completely "assembled", "equipped", before pinching the edges, a little broth pouring into it poured into it, in which the meat was cooked. Then the pancakes in the layer were soaked well, and the cake itself literally melted in the mouth. A wonderful culinary effect was achieved by those who combined minced meat with mushroom, and also put a few sour cucumbers.
Kulebyak whip up
It is far from always that the housewives have time to observe absolutely all the details of the cooking process of the cookie cutter. And I really want to please home and myself with tasty ones. A quick pie comes to the rescue. Its essence lies in the fact that the hostess prepares a filling of approximately the same consistency as for stuffed cabbage or stuffed pepper. It can be rice with meat and mushrooms or buckwheat porridge with the same ingredients. When the dough is rolled out, the filling is laid out on it with a slide, and on top, instead of cladding, it should be sprinkled with the test crumb. Now pinch the edges, making a beautiful “comb”. Put the cake for 20 minutes in a warm place to rise, grease with an egg, pierce in several places with a fork. Kulebyak needs to bake the oven at a temperature of 220 degrees. When the dough is browned, check the match for readiness. Hot, cut into pieces and bring to the table.
Here she is, a miracle coulibia!