I have received a complete farewell package at the Boryspol International Airport in Kyiv: getting stuck due to the indefinitely delayed flight, paying for 30 kilos of excess luggage, having my three carry-on bags rummaged thoroughly as apparently they were so stuffed with stuff that left the X-ray scanner blind.
This was Ukraine not letting me go with peace after 21 months of my dedicated service to its regional development.
I would like to go briefly into the theory of the matter first. Dumplings, momos, manti, ravioli, khinkali, pelmeni, vareniki and alike come from the same family of food that essentially is about boiled or steamed dough stuffed with vegetables, cheese, berries or meat.
This makes an easy to prepare and quick to eat earthy countryside meal thatI enjoyedat the hole-in-the-wall eateries on the Himalayan foothills in Sikkim and Dharamsala, hosted family meals in Cappadocia region in Central Turkey, family-run restaurants throughout Italy, cafes of Krasnoyarsk in the Eastern Siberia, my grandma house in the Volga region in Russia, and anywhere Western Ukraine.
What I like about the Ukrainian take is the use of berries for stuffing. And cherries is such a brilliant idea as it you end up with a dessert-like feel of the juicy cherries little marinated and only slightly cooked which still becomes a very filling meal. This sounds just perfect for summer when it you want less cooked food, skipping meals and rather eating desserts.
I can’t promise you will become a big fan of this cherry dumplings recipe unless you have some Eastern European roots or strong desire to feel like an Eastern European for once eat least. Because apart from finding the flavor somewhat novel you would have to deal with the authentic Eastern European way to remove the cherry pits so to get the dish taste as it really should.
Well, I guess even in the Soviet Union we were not totally deprived of cherry pitters but apparently there were not enough of them. This fact created a very family-binding routine that I was looking forward to every summer when the cherries ripened in the grandma’s garden. The routine was to get together at place with tiled walls (usually the kitchen), strip down to your underwear or beachwear, get a metal safety pin and sit down around a big bucket of cherries.
The whole family then would get messy tirelessly removing pits from the hundreds of cherries with the end of the pin. The boys of the family preferred the cherry pits throwing to this activity: you take a moist freshly removed cherry pit, place it between the pads of the thumb and index finger and release it using the index finger as a trigger.
Ultimate fun for the everybody including the moms who had to clean everything and everybody after the pit removing and throwing. The pit-less cherries would then go for tasty jams and cherry dumplings.
Ukrainian Cherry Dumplings Recipe
Summer dessert and a complete meal with juicy cherries.
Ingredients (4 servings):
500 g cherries
4+2 tbsp sugar
1.5+1.5 tbsp potato starch
2 glasses whole-wheat flour
2/3 +1/3 egg
2/3+2/3 glass of water
Salt to taste
Method:
1.Prepare the cherries:
Wash, discard the stems and remove the pits using either a cheery pitter or a metal safety pin. In the latter case hold the cherry with the three fingers of one hand and take a safety pin in the other one. Carefully but firmly drive the side of the pin with the loop (not there it closes) into the stem end of the cherry and get to the bottom of the pit. Now drive the pin up and in the opposite direction – voila, here is your cherry without a pit! Set aside the pits mixed with 2 tbsp of sugar. Mix in 4 tbsp of sugar into the pit-less cherries and also set aside.
2.Make the dough:
Make the flour into a hillock on the table or a large round bowl. Make a hole in the middle to make your hillock into a volcano, add the 2/3 egg there and start mixing it with the flour working with your index finger that will be making circles larger and larger as the dough becomes thicker. Mix water and salt in a glass and start pouring it in the crater of your flour volcano – from making circles with your index finger you will progress towards using the whole palm to shape your dough into a neat ball. While you would need to arrive to a smooth substance you don’t want to overdo it or the dough will not be as soft. Once done set the dough aside for 20-30 minutes to rest.
3.Make the dumplings:
Season the clean tabletop with some flour and put the dough ball on the seasoned surface. Flatten out the dough with pressing your palm in the middle of the ball and then roll out the dough by working with the rolling pin from the middle to the edges.
Make the dough about 2-3 mm thin: the thinner dough will tear apart when you will be stuffing the dumplings and thicker one is not that nice to eat. Take a round biscuit cutter (or a glass) with the diameter of approximately 4 line-up cherries and cut the dough into the rounds.
Now discard the juice from the cherries (but keep it) and mix in 1.5 tbsp potato starch to the cherries so they don’t get too juicy in the dumplings and make them a mess. Take one dough round, line up three cherries right in the middle of it and use the remaining egg to slightly moisten the inner edges of the dumpling-to-be.
Now pull the opposite edges in the centre of the dough round towards each other and press to seal them. Take the dumpling with your both hands – with folded side down and edges up – and work from the middle using the pads of all your fingers to press on the edges from the both sides and ultimately seal them.
Make sure you seal well so the dumplings do not open while boiling. Place the sealed dumpling on a plate or cutting board seasoned with flour so they do not stick. Continue to make as many dumplings as your dough and cherries allow.
4.Cook the dumplings:Pick up a large bowl and fill in with lots of water. I do mean lots of water. Add some salt to the water and bring to boil. Throw a batch of the dumplings in and as they surface indicating they are cooked take them out with a large perforated spoon, rinse with hot water and put on a large plate. Continue with another batch and so on.
5.Cook the kissel:Now we recall that we have some pits and cherry juice left and they make a wonderful material forkissel, a sweet drink resembling thin jelly, in this case used as a sauce for the dumplings. Combine the pits, the cherry juice, 2/3 glass of water and 1.5 tbsp potato starch in a small pen and bring to boil.Simmer on a low flame and keep stirring for about 5 minutes.
6.Serve: Cherry dumplings are best served cold with the warm kissel and a dollop of sour cream on top. They tend to go quickly and in no time an empty place and expecting eyes will make you start the process again. So consider making more from the beginning.
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