Dumplings are considered an original Russian dish. But minced meat products in the test are present in the cookbooks of almost all peoples. It is enough to recall Kazakh manti, Caucasian khinkali, Chinese wonton, Japanese gedze, Mongolian buuzy, Kalmyk berigi, Ukrainian dumplings, Italian tortelloni and ravioli. But dumplings were not invented by Russians, but by Udmurts and Komi. This is evidenced by the etymology of the word. “Pel” and “nannies” mean “ear” and “bread”. This name reflects the form that you need to give products. But "eared bread" differs from other types of dough with meat filling not only in the way of molding. Minced meat in them the most. This is explained historically. After all, Komi and Udmurts lived in forests rich in game, but they had little flour, and it was very much appreciated. Therefore, the dough in real dumplings should be thin, translucent. Of course, the store product is very far from the original Ural product. And those who know how to cook homemade dumplings will never buy it. And in this article we will reveal all the secrets of “eared bread.” First of all, it should be said that Permians made a special contribution to making “dumplings” a culinary masterpiece. In addition to cooking mushrooms, fish, sauerkraut, they found the ideal ratio of minced meat. In the western part of Russia, the dish became known from the seventeenth century as “perm-nen”, and in the century before last, it got its modern name.
The main specifics of dumplings
As we have said, dishes from boiled dough with filling are available in many nations. But dumplings differ from other similar products in a large ratio of minced meat. The test in them should be no more than forty percent. And if it is less, then these are delicious home-made dumplings. How to cook this culinary masterpiece? We will consider this in full details a bit later. Dumplings are never dessert. This, and not just the form, distinguishes them from dumplings. The filling inside the dumplings is always laid raw. It boils slightly during cooking. So, unlike khinkali and buuz, the product does not form a broth. Therefore, dumplings are often served with a small amount of water in which they were boiled, flavored with vinegar. However, in Ukraine they are eaten with butter and sour cream, like dumplings. The “right” dumplings have mixed minced meat. One pork makes the dish too fat, and beef harsh. And, of course, dumplings make their shape recognizable. How to sculpt “ears” from the dough, we will describe below.
How to cook dough for dumplings: recipe number 1
The key to a delicious dish is a properly mixed product shell. The dough, on the one hand, must be rolled very thinly. On the other hand, it is safe to hold the filling inside, do not tear and do not open when cooking. Homemade dumplings (as opposed to a store product) are light yellow, not white. This color gives the dough eggs. But if there are too many of them, the base becomes steep and loses its properties as “modeling clay”. Permyakov did not spoil the harsh nature, and they did not add eggs to the dough. Nevertheless, their recipe was the most popular. So, we proceed from the principle of straightforward Asian minimalism. Sift three cups of flour into a bowl. In the resulting hill we make a depression - something like a crater in a volcano. Pour a teaspoon of salt into it and pour a glass of cold water. We begin to mix the flour, pushing it from the walls of the vent into the crater. So knead until we get a smooth ball. He will absorb all the flour. More precisely, how to make dough for dumplings is difficult. After all, flour can have a different amount of gluten, and water can be hard or soft. Here you need to focus on your own tactile sensations. The dough under your hands should not be too tight, but not too soft. In the first case, add water, in the second - pour flour. We will conduct an exam for the test - cut off a piece with a knife. It should neither stick to the blade nor leave marks on it, and its cut should be smooth and glossy.
Egg dough
How else can you cook dumplings? Photos of golden-colored products look very appetizing. Egg dough is more structural. Many people believe that dumplings on water and flour turn out to be tasteless. Well, try comparing the two recipes. So, we start work traditionally: sift flour into a bowl, make a deepening. A feature of the recipe is that the water should be at room temperature and even a little warmer (but not hot). Pour half a teaspoon of salt into three glasses of flour and drive in an egg. Pour water and knead, as indicated in recipe number 1. The advantage of this test is its taste. When you try dumplings, you will feel in your mouth not only minced meat, but also its characteristic shell. The disadvantage of egg dough is its low quality for sculpting. In addition, if you want to prepare dumplings for the future, in the freezer, the shell may wind and crack. To prevent this from happening, you need to add a teaspoon of vegetable oil (any) to the funnel from flour along with other ingredients. Such a maneuver will not only protect the dough from airing, but will also make it more elastic.
Milk Recipe
You can also make dough for dumplings at home in this way. Many culinary experts believe that milk gives a delicate taste to flour products. The recipe also uses water and an egg. And to improve elasticity, you can also use vegetable oil. The algorithm of actions is not much different from how recipe No. 1 describes it. But the proportions of the ingredients are slightly different. First, you need to work in a warm room. So the components will quickly enter into a relationship with each other. We fill the glass to half with milk. Dilute it with water at room temperature (in a ratio of one to one). First, we will beat an egg into a funnel from flour, salt it and shake it with a fork. Then pour the diluted milk. If necessary, add a spoonful of vegetable oil. The resulting dough should be pretty cool. Knead him until it stops sticking to his hands. There is a similar recipe when mineral water is used instead of water. Then the algorithm of actions is a little different. Flour is mixed with salt, make a depression. One hundred milliliters of milk is poured into it. Shake the egg with a mineral water (also 100 ml). Add to the dough. In any case, add vegetable oil at the end.
Choux pastry for dumplings
Many housewives, thinking about how to cook delicious dumplings, resort to the Ukrainian recipe. What? Choux pastry is very tasty, thinly rolled and, most importantly, has excellent properties for sculpting products. In this recipe, be sure to use vegetable oil. But first, sift into a wide bowl two glasses of flour. Mix it with half a teaspoon of salt. We make a deepening. Pour a glass of boiling water. Because the dough is called choux because we make it like tea. First, knead it with a fork, and then, when it cools down a bit, add three tablespoons of vegetable oil and continue to work with your hands. The dough should turn out to be very pleasant to the touch, smooth, slightly shiny. And in no case stick to hands and surfaces.
Kefir dough
The disadvantage of such a shell for dumplings is that it can not be rolled out very thinly. But the advantages are incomparably greater. The dough comes out soft, elastic, it is perfectly molded, and in a cooked form it turns out as if smooth-airy, so to speak. Lactic acid bacteria contained in kefir play the role of baking powder. So, if you do not know how to cook dumplings at home, this recipe will come in handy. But the algorithm of actions here is completely different. Pour a glass of kefir, preferably fatty, into a bowl. We begin to add flour, gently kneading with a spoon. So it can take from 300 to 400 grams. In the end, we knead the dough for a long time with our hands, occasionally hitting them on the countertop so that as much gluten as possible stands out from the flour. Whichever of the above recipes we use, but the resulting bun must be wrapped in cling film and left at room temperature for forty or even an hour. Such "settling" will make the dough even more elastic. Press the bun with a finger. If the notch springs up, smoothes out, we'll wait a bit more. But when the hole remains - the dough is ready to go.
How to cook minced meat for dumplings: a classic recipe
Stuffing is, without exaggeration, the heart and soul of the dish. It is by the type of forcemeat that dumplings are called “Ural”, “Siberian”, “Russian”, etc. You can start products not only with meat, but also with fish, as well as mushrooms, cheese with herbs, sauerkraut, cottage cheese, chicken giblets, and liver. Permians came up with the best recipe on how to cook homemade dumplings. Thanks to them, this dish has become so popular. This recipe is simple: 45% of beef, 20% of pork and the remaining 35% are mutton. But since the latter type of meat is quite difficult to get, another classic forcemeat composition has taken root in Russia. This is an equal ratio of beef fillet and pork tenderloin. A small flip in the latter is only welcome. We twist the pork and beef (half a kilo) in a meat grinder along with two peeled onions. Salt and pepper. Mix and leave for half an hour. Pour a hundred milliliters of water. Some recipes recommend using cream instead. So the stuffing will be more tender. Knead again and move on to the next step.
Other types of minced meat for dumplings
But wait a while with sculpting products! As soon as we learned how to cook classic dumplings, let's see how to diversify this dish. Two onions finely chopped and fry until golden brown in vegetable oil. A kilogram of fish fillet (without bones) is scrolled through a meat grinder. Mix with onions, salt and pepper. In addition to minced fish, you can cook and curd. To do this, grind cheese (feta cheese or feta) in a meat grinder and knead with finely chopped dill. In the post, a real find will be dumplings with mushrooms. A kilogram of mushrooms or mushrooms should be cleaned and boiled until half ready. Then they should be slightly fried. Separately, chop finely chopped onion. Grind the mushrooms in a meat grinder. Mix with toasted onions. Season with salt and season with spices.
Modeling
Chefs recommend not trusting the device of the Soviet era called "dumpling". Products made with its help, in a saucepan with boiling water are immediately revealed, so that you will eat meat stuffing with a side dish of scraps of dough. Sculpt the "ears" yourself - this is not such a time-consuming task. How to cook dumplings at home? First roll the dough into a thin layer. Inverted glass, cut the mugs. Collect the scraps, roll them out again. Make more circles. In the middle of each disc, place a teaspoon of minced meat. Fold the cake in half and gently pinch the edges. Get a dumpling. Next we need to "seat him in the Lotus position. To do this, we press the middle of the dumpling to the index finger, and curl the edges and fasten them. We put the finished “ears” on a board sprinkled with flour. There is another way to cook dumplings. Roll a thin sausage from the dough, cut it into identical slices. Each piece of dough is rolled into a thin cake. We spread the filling and sculpt the dumpling. But, as we see, this method is more time-consuming.
Cooking
At this stage, even the student knows how to cook dumplings. Yes, simply throw them into boiling salted water! But if you want to cook delicious dumplings, you need to approach this elementary phase of cooking wisely. We take a large saucepan - the products should feel at ease and touch each other as little as possible. Pour water into two-thirds of the tank. We put the pan on the fire. In addition to salt, add two bay leaves and a few peas of pepper. You can also resort to the trick that many Ukrainian housewives use when cooking dumplings: pour boiling water in a spoon or two of vegetable oil. This will prevent the products from sticking together. Dip one dumplings into boiling water. Mix once to make sure that no product is stuck to the bottom. When dumplings one by one float to the surface, and the water begins to boil again, we reduce the fire. Let the products boil for another five minutes. Skimmer catch one dumpling. We try. If the dough is soft and the mince is not damp, catch the rest with a slotted spoon. Make sure to put a piece of butter in a bowl in which you will cook the boiled dumplings. It will not only not allow products to stick together, but also enrich the taste of the dish.
Innings
So you have learned how to cook dumplings. It remains only to effectively serve the dish to the table. Would you like to follow an authentic Perm recipe? Pour half of the soup ladle of the broth in which the products were cooked into each plate with dumplings, sprinkle with vinegar, sprinkle with black pepper and chopped green onion. A dish seasoned with plain butter will be very tasty. And you can endlessly experiment with mayonnaise, adding garlic, mustard, ketchup, spicy herbs to it. Rustic tender and fat sour cream will also be an excellent seasoning for dumplings. If you have mastered the recipe for cooking dumplings with fish, prepare a cream-based sauce. It can be either tender bechamel or velvet thick olandez. Want to surprise your loved ones? Then make pot dumplings for them. We put the cooked products in fireproof molds, oiled. Pour sour cream on top and grate hard cheese. Bake in the oven until a ruddy "hat" is formed. And if you have a deep fryer, you can serve fried dumplings to the table.