Pelmeni Recipe (Beef and Pork Dumplings)

When I went through Valentina’s pelmeni, the one thing I said I would change was to cook them past the float. So here is how I would make them: on the same dough as my pierogi ruskie, with the traditional beef and pork filling, and boiled until the middle is properly cooked.

There are no photos on this one yet. I will add them the next time I make a batch.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

What Pelmeni Are

Pelmeni are small Russian dumplings: a thin dough round a spoonful of raw seasoned mince, boiled and eaten with butter. They are smaller than pierogi and almost always meat, and like our uszka their corners are pinched together into a little round. A big batch goes in the freezer, and dinner is ten minutes away.

Pelmeni and Polish Kołduny

Poland has its own small meat dumpling: kołduny, from the old borderlands with Lithuania and Belarus. Karolina Nakwaska wrote them down in 1843. Her filling is lean beef and kidney suet chopped together until it is almost a paste, seasoned with pepper, allspice and nutmeg, and the dough is cut into walnut-sized pieces and each one rolled into a thin round. She served them before the barszcz with horseradish loosened with vinegar and a little sugar, and told cooks to make at least fifteen a person, because “są tacy amatorowie, że po sześćdziesiąt sztuk konsumują”: some people will eat sixty. Other Polish versions use veal or mutton with marjoram, eaten on their own or in rosół or barszcz. The word kołdun once also meant a belly, or a glutton, which says a lot about how they were eaten.

Nakwaska takes hers out as soon as they float. I give pelmeni a few minutes more and check the middle, for the reason in step 6.

A Closer Look at the Ingredients

• Plain flour Plain is enough. A soft dough is what you want here, one that rolls thin without fighting back, and strong bread flour makes a chewier, tougher wrapper. Instead: 00 pasta flour works the same way.
• Hot water and oil This is my pierogi dough, and the hot water and oil are what make it soft and stretchy, so it rolls thin and seals without cracking. Most pelmeni recipes use an egg dough. Instead: swap some of the water for an egg if that is the dough you know.
• Beef and pork mince The traditional mix. The beef gives the filling its flavour and the pork keeps it rich and juicy. Instead: pork and chicken for a lighter filling, or all pork.
• Onion, grated Grated, not chopped, so it melts into the meat and the filling holds together with no hard bits.
• Cold water in the filling A few spoons of cold water stirred into the mince keep the filling juicy inside the dough.
• Butter and dill Melted butter over the top and chopped dill on it. Instead: plenty of people add a spoon of soured cream or a splash of vinegar.

How to Make Pelmeni, Step by Step

Seven steps, the same as the recipe card below, with the reasons attached.

1. Make the dough and rest it. Flour and salt in a bowl, then the oil and the just-boiled water, stirred with a spoon until it comes together. Knead it for about five minutes until it is smooth, then wrap it and leave it for half an hour.Kneading tightens the dough, and a tight dough springs back every time you roll it. Rested, it relaxes and rolls out thin without a fight. I go into this for pierogi in why pierogi dough goes tough.
2. Mix the filling. Grate the onion straight into the bowl, add both minces, the salt, the pepper and the cold water, and mix until it turns sticky and holds together.Sticky is what you are after: it means the filling holds in one piece inside the dough instead of crumbling. Keep it in the fridge while you roll.
3. Roll it thin and cut rounds. Cut the dough into three and cover two pieces. Roll one out on a floured worktop to about 1.5 mm and cut 6 cm rounds with a cutter or a glass.Roll it as thin as you can. The most common complaint from people making pelmeni is running out of dough before the filling is used up, and a thick wrapper is also what makes them stodgy. Covering the rest of the dough matters too, because a dry edge will not seal.
4. Fill and shape. A level teaspoon of filling on each round, fold it over into a half-moon and press the edges hard. Then bring the two corners round and pinch them together.Do not overfill them. Too much filling pushes the seal open in the pot, and a level teaspoon is plenty for a 6 cm round.
5. Freeze what you will not cook today. Lay them on a floured tray so they do not touch and put the tray in the freezer for about an hour, until they are hard. Then tip them into a bag.Freezing them apart first stops them sticking together into one block in the bag.
6. Cook them past the float. A large pot of salted water at a steady simmer, the pelmeni in batches, and one stir so nothing sticks to the bottom. When they come up, give them three to four more minutes, five to seven from frozen, and cut one open the first time.A dumpling floats when the steam inside makes it lighter than the water, and that can happen before the meat in the middle is cooked. Mince is the risky kind of meat, because whatever was on the surface of the meat is now all the way through it, so the middle needs to be cooked through: no pink, or 71C on a thermometer.On the water: a steady simmer rather than a hard boil, so the pelmeni do not knock each other open.
7. Butter and dill. Lift them out with a slotted spoon, toss them in the melted butter and scatter the dill over.Toss them while they are hot and wet, so the butter coats every one and they do not stick together on the plate.

Check out my other Recipes:

Pelmeni FAQ

A Few Words from the Chef

I built these on the same dough as my pierogi, because it rolls thin, seals well and freezes well. Make a big batch with someone helping, one rolling and one filling, and the freezer is sorted for a month. Tell me in the comments how they went. Smacznego!