Pelmeni Baked in a Pot with Smoked Meats and Mushrooms
Pull the pelmeni — small Slavic meat dumplings, close cousins of pierogi — from the water two or three minutes early. They finish inside the pot, drinking up rendered smoky fat and sour cream, and fully boiled ones collapse into mush under the cheese.
The dish is assembled from odds and ends: a handful of dumplings, whatever smoked meat is in the fridge, a few mushrooms. Salo is cured pork fatback, smoked in this case; thick-cut bacon or pancetta stands in well. It renders the fat that the onion and mushrooms fry in, and that fat is what flavours everything stacked above it. Frozen wild mushrooms need a dry pan first to drive off their water, or nothing browns. Smetana is full-fat cultured sour cream — US full-fat sour cream or creme fraiche both work.
Layer order matters. Saute, a spoonful of sour cream, dumplings, more saute, and the grated cheese last: buried under the meat it melts but never crisps. A hot oven, somewhere around 200 C (400 F), is what builds the top; leave the lid off for the final few minutes.
Part of Eastern European cuisine — 68 more recipes in the section.
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Ingredients
Instructions
Fry the onion in oil with a small amount of assorted smoked meats: sausages, frankfurters, smoked fatback.
Add the mushrooms (frozen or fresh) and fry until half-done.
Boil the pelmeni until half-done.
Layer in the pot: the saute, a tablespoon of sour cream, the pelmeni, and the saute again on top.
Sprinkle with grated cheese and place in the oven.
Bake until golden. Serve with sour cream.
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