I am grateful to cooks like Valentina who share the recipes they grew up with. Recipes like these are part of a culture, and every family that writes theirs down keeps a little of it alive. Pelmeni are one dumpling I have never put on this site, even though it has their Polish cousin, so I went through Valentina’s pelmeni and checked them as a chef: what works, why it works, and the one thing I would change before you put a pot on.
Pelmeni are small meat dumplings, a thin egg dough wrapped round a spoonful of seasoned raw mince, boiled and usually served with butter, soured cream or a splash of vinegar. They freeze beautifully, which is why people make them in big batches.
Who Is Valentina?
Valentina Ablaev is the recipe developer and food photographer behind Valentina’s Corner. She was born in Ukraine and moved to the United States, and the blog she started as a creative outlet became a full-time job in 2019. It is a family business now: her husband Timur works on it with her, and there is a small team behind them.
The site covers just about everything, from thirty-minute dinners to Mexican, Italian and Japanese favourites, but the Ukrainian and Slavic dishes she grew up with are still there, and they are the ones I would go to her for. Her recipes are tested and written simply, so a beginner can follow them.
Where Pelmeni Come From
Pelmeni belong to a big family of dumplings that spread out from northern China: mandu in Korea, gyoza in Japan, momo in Tibet, pelmeni in Russia, vareniki in Ukraine, pierogi in Poland and ravioli in Italy. The shapes differ, but the idea is the same everywhere, a thin dough round a filling, and every country has made it its own.
Pelmeni are the small, meat-filled branch of that family. Where pierogi are usually larger half-moons with potato, cheese or cabbage inside, pelmeni are little and almost always meat. Valentina says the same on her page, and she is right that the dough is very close to a pierogi dough.
Valentina’s Recipe in Brief
Her dough is milk, water, an egg and salt, with flour added a cup at a time in a stand mixer until it is smooth and no longer sticky, then rested for 15 to 30 minutes. The filling is pork and chicken mince with grated onion, garlic, dill, salt, pepper and a little vinegar and water. She shapes them either in a pelmeni mould or by hand from squares of dough, then boils them in salted water for 2 to 3 minutes, until they float. The full quantities and her step photos are on Valentina’s Corner.
What Works, and Why
Resting the dough. She calls it vital, and she is right. When you knead a dough the gluten tightens up, and a tight dough springs back every time you roll it. Left to rest, it relaxes into a softer, more pliable sheet you can roll thin without a fight, which is exactly what a pelmeni needs. I go into the same thing for pierogi in why pierogi dough goes tough.
Keeping the dough covered. A thin dough dries at the edges in minutes, and a dry edge will not seal. Covering what you are not using is a small step that saves a lot of burst dumplings.
Grated onion in the filling. Grating rather than chopping lets the onion melt into the meat, so the filling stays juicy and holds together instead of having hard bits of onion in it.
Two ways to shape them. A mould makes dozens at once and they all come out the same size, and she gives the by-hand method too, so you are not stuck if you do not own one.
Making a big batch. Her suggestion to double it for the freezer is how pelmeni are meant to be made. They freeze well, and you can cook them straight from frozen.
What I Would Change
Do not stop at the float. This is the one I would underline. A dumpling floats when the air and steam inside it make it lighter than the water, and that can happen before the meat in the middle is cooked. With raw pork and chicken inside, I would give them another two or three minutes once they come up, and cut one open the first time you make them. The filling should be cooked right through with no pink, and minced chicken in particular needs to be.
Weigh the flour. Cups of flour that are measured and then sifted can vary a lot, and she gives her own fixes for a dough that comes out too sticky or too dry. Weighing it takes most of that guesswork away.
Try the traditional meat once. She says herself that the classic mix is beef and pork, and that her family prefers pork and chicken. Both are good, but beef and pork gives a richer, darker filling, and it is worth making once to see which your family likes.
My Verdict
This is a solid, well-explained pelmeni recipe, and the parts that trip most people up, a dough that fights back and dumplings that burst, are covered properly. The only thing I would change is to cook them a little past the float and check the middle, especially with chicken in the filling. Do that, and it is a recipe I would happily send people to.
If you want to make them my way, here is my pelmeni recipe, on my pierogi dough and cooked past the float. And if you like pelmeni, my pierogi ruskie are their Polish cousin, with a potato and twaróg filling instead of meat.
A Few Words from the Chef
Pelmeni are one of those dishes that are better made with company: someone rolling, someone filling, and a tray going into the freezer at the end. Valentina’s recipe is a good one to start with. Just give them those extra couple of minutes in the pot. If you make them, tell me in the comments what you serve them with. Smacznego!
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