[Sca-cooks] Russian food- vatrushki

Huette von Ahrens ahrenshav at yahoo.com
Thu Jul 20 16:22:13 PDT 2006


Instead of ricotta, which is a good cheese, but very wet, use hoop cheese.  It
is essentially cottage cheese without the moisture.  I have gotten hoop cheese
various places.  Sometimes at a good deli, sometimes at an upscale market.  Whole Foods
seems to be carrying it regularly here.

My Prussian grandmother used to make this wonderful fried pie, that is similar
to piroshkis but with a similar filling to this vatroushki.  All the German food
experts I have asked about this are stumped.  I have long wondered if it is a 
Prussian dish, a Polish dish, a Russian dish?  We always called them cheese
pies.  The crust is a very heavy dough that is rolled out into circles and filled
with the cheese filling and the edges are twisted/braided shut.  My grandmother used to 
boil them for a few minutes and then fried them on a griddle.  My mother eliminated
the boiling and they still are very good.  But using hoop cheese is essential or
the filling will bubble out.  Sigh.  I probably will never know the true name of this
dish.  By the time I thought to ask my grandmother, she was too old and senile to
remember.  Sigh.

Huette

--- Stephanie Ross <hlaislinn at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Vatroushki to Serve with Borsch
> 
> Filling:
> 1 lb pot cheese (I used ricotta, but you could also sieve cottage cheese)
> 1 tbsp sour cream
> 2 eggs
> 1/2 tsp sugar
> 1/2 tsp salt
> 
> 
> Wrap the pot cheese in a cheesecloth and place it in a sieve with a plate
> on the cheese and a weight on the plate. Leave it three or four hours to
> press out the excess water. When the cheese seems quite dry, rub it through
> a fine sieve. Add the sour cream. Stir until smooth. Add the sugar, salt
> and eggs. Mix thoroughly. Set aside to chill one hour.
> 
> Short Pastry
> 2 c sifted flour
> 1/2 tsp salt
> 1/2 c butter
> 1/2 c ice water (approximately)
> 
> Sift flour and salt together; work in the butter, which should be very
> cold, using the fingertips or a pastry blender until the flour resembles
> course meal. Add the water to the flour mixture and stir. The dough should
> be rather stiff, but this will depend somewhat on the quality of the flour
> used. It may require the full cup of water. Roll out to 1/4" thickness.
> Stamp out rounds about 3" across. On each round of pastry put 1 1/2 tbsp of
> the cheese filling. Pat the filling flat, leaving a border of pastry. Turn
> the border up and pinch in scallops. These vatrushki are like small open
> tarts. Brush the cheese filling with an egg yolk diluted with 1 tbsp water,
> then prick lightly with a fork and place on a lightly greased cookie sheet.
> Bake 15 minutes in a hot oven, 400 degrees. Serve immediately.
> 
> 
> 
> I cheated and used ricotta instead of cottage cheese and used philo dough
> tart shells instead of making my own. I ran out of time after making a
> couple hundred piroshkis and so cut corners where I could. This recipe is
> supposed to use a sour cream dough which is also used for piroshkis. I
> didn't like the dough however. It was heavy but rose puffily and seemed too
> doughy for my taste. Next time I will use short pastry instead. The philo
> was wonderful, just not authentic.
> 
> ~Aislinn~
> Et si omnes ego non.
> 
> "The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the
> first and only legitimate object of good government." --Thomas Jefferson to
> Maryland Republicans, 1809.
> 
> 
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> 


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