[Sca-cooks] Russian food-Kurnik

[Stephanie Ross]

Old Fashioned Kurnik
(Russian Chicken Pie)

2 onions
1 stalk celery
1 clove garlic
6 peppercorns
2 cloves
1 bay leaf
5 c water
3 to 4 lb chicken
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c thick cream, sweet or sour
2 tbsp minced parsley
1 tsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 c rice
1 lb mushrooms
2 tbsp butter
5 hard-boiled eggs, chopped

Put the onions, celery, garlic, peppercorns, cloves and bay leaf in a spice
bag or tie them together in a piece of gauze. Put them in a pot with water
and bring to a boil. Put the chicken in and simmer for 1 hour. Add the salt
and continue cooking for 30 minutes. The chicken should be tender but not
overcooked. Tansk the chicken out and slice the breast into thin slices.
Chop the rest of the meat, discarding all skin and gristle. Skim the fat
from the chicken broth. Mix 1 1/2 cups  of the broth with the cream and
simmer very slowly until reduced to one cup. Add the minced parsley, lemon
juice, and nutmeg, then mix in the chopped chicken.
Wash the rice well and cook it 10 minutes in boiling salted water. Throw
the rice in a sieve and rinse with cold water. Put the rice to cook in 3
cups of boiling chicken broth. Cook til just done. The rice musn't be too
soft. Slice the mushrooms and saute them in butter.
Use a deep round pie dish. Ovenproof glass is best. Roll out sour-cream
pastry so you will have one piece big enough to line the dish, with an
extra margin to bend in a little at the top. The other piece must be a
round piece cut to fit the top of the dish exactly. Put half the rice on
the bottom crust, then a layer of chopped eggs,  and some of the chopped
chicken and mushrooms. Now another layer of eggs, then another layer of
chicken and mushrooms. On this layer of mushrooms arrange the slices of
chicken breast and cover with the remainder of the rice. Press the filling
down evenly. Put on the top piece of pastry. Turn the margin of the lower
crust over it and crimp the edge. Cut a good-sized hole in the center of
the pie. Decorate around it with leaf-shaped pieces of pastry. Brush over
with lightly beaten egg yolk. Bake 15 minutes in a hot oven (400 degrees).
Reduce the heat and continue baking till the pie bubbles where the crusts
are joined. This should take about 30 minutes. Serve very hot. 

Alexandra Kropotkin


I think I lowered the temp to 350. This pie was tasty even though it was
served cold. I bet it's fabulous hot. It looked really pretty too with the
leaves on it.

~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.