I made ~150 pelmeni today. They taste great but I'm having

>>8149780
haha theyre like little ballsacks

If you made them 10 hours a day, 6 days a week, yours would look beautiful too.
Stop worrying so much.

>>8149780
the very pretty ones are some times the result of machines or specialised molds/presses

you can buy the molds/presses online, I own one and use it now and then

http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/162221732535?lpid=82&chn=ps&ul_noapp=true

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are you me?

just made these today, making more tomorrow. you need to fold them like pierogies and then pinch the ends together to make them round.

What did you put in yours?

>>8149867
lol no, if I were you mine would look way better. I put beef and lamb in them, those were always my favorite to order in Russia, although the first time I did beef and pork, which, I think, is the more traditional

>>8149982
to follow up, my biggest problem was having trouble molding the dough. It was so wet and soft, had a ton of trouble working with it. My recipe called for 7 cups of flour, ended up putting in 8 and was still not quite satisfied, but was worried about fucking up how the dough tastes, so I stopped. Eventually had more luck handling the dough by applying flour to my hands liberally during the process, made it so the dough didn't stick to me, but it was still a pita to mold them without them smooshing together

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>>8149982
>>8149991
I ground some beef short rib meat and pork rib meat together, and seasoned with salt/msg. might try lamb next time.

I'll take some photos of how to fold them tmrw when I make more.

for the dough, I used about 4 cups flour (started with 3 but seemed too sticky so I kept adding more), 2 eggs, 2 tablespoons sour cream, 200ml water, and a teaspoon of salt. came out perfect and easy to work with.

I've been slowly perfecting these since my babushka passed away, these are probably the best I've had.

>>8149780
I would recommend picking up a press, you should be able to get one on amazon for $10-15... makes production easier and your product more consistent

>>8150006
excellent, I'll try that dough recipe. Forgot to say, I also put a sauteed onion and a few cloves of garlic in with the meat. Very tasty

I used 8 cups flour, tbsp sour cream, about 500 ml water, and 1.5 tsp salt. The excessive amount of water is probably my issue. Extra sour cream sounds tasty, I'll put more in next time.

Do you get authentic smetana for the dough and/or to put on them when eating? I'm in San Francisco, there's an eastern euro market I know of but it's about an hour from my place by bus and I'm nervous about dairy products sitting on a hot bus for an hour.

Honestly, this whole thing took me most of the day (although some of that time was waiting for the first round to freeze before I could form the second, not enough freezer space) but it's reasonably cheap, even with the meat, and I probably have a good 7 or 8 meals out of it.

>>8150017
that sounds like a good idea. Will save tons of time, and probably get me to make them more often, meaning saving money for when I need something easy to make after work (alternative is a $7 burrito)

>>8150039
forgot to add, also 1/2 cup buttermilk in the dough.

>>8150039
I forgot I put onion/garlic in mine too.

is that dough recipe from that natasha's kitchen site? Idk if I trust that site, a lot of strange recipes.

I could probably find smetana here in orlando, but I usually just go with sour cream. I was thinking about making a brown butter and sage sauce for them this time as well.

they are labor intensive, largely dependent on how easy the dough is to work with. but one of the quickest, filling meals to warm up. no wonder siberians loved them so much.

>>8150066
Yeh, that's where the recipe's from. I don't trust it very much but it seemed like one of the better options when googling and was pretty good last time. I need to get around to asking my Russian friends how their mothers and babushkas make theirs. I have a lot of friends in Russia and spent a few months there... really regret not learning more cooking stuff from them. Very hard to find good Russian food in the US for a reasonable price. Very hard to go from paying 75 cents for a blin to cafes charging $5 for a shitty knockoff, and $10-20 for pelmeni, something that would be $3-4 in Moscow and taste an order of magnitude better.

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>>8150083
I don't understand why she uses turkey in her pelmeni and piroshki, is that authentic? she also puts grated carrot in piroshki.

Honestly your best bet is to experiment with smaller batches, I've already improved on my babushkas pelmeni, same goes for my piroshki.

This is the dough recipe I started with but obviously changed a few things.
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/7612/siberian-pelmeni

pic related is frozen pelmeni at a russian market