Kalduny

Ingredients

• Potatoes — floury variety1.5 kg
• Minced pork400 g
• Onions3
• Egg1
• Soured cream300 ml
• Dried mushrooms30 g
• Marjoram1 tsp
• Vegetable oil100 ml
• Dill30 g
• Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Soak the dried mushrooms in warm water for twenty minutes and chop them fine.

   22 min

2. 2

   Fry two onions with the mince and mushrooms, add the marjoram, salt and pepper and cool it completely.

   25 min

3. 3

   Grate the potatoes and the remaining onion finely into one bowl.

   20 min

4. 4

   Let the mass stand three minutes and pour off the water that gathers, leaving the sediment.

   5 min

5. 5

   Work in the egg and season the potato mass.

   4 min

6. 6

   Put a spoon of the mass on your palm, add filling and cover it with a second spoon, sealing the edges.

   20 min

7. 7

   Fry them three minutes a side, move them to a pan, pour over the soured cream and stew fifteen minutes.

   30 min

About the dish

Kalduny differ from draniki in having the filling inside. This is not a pancake with meat on top but a closed one, and in Belarus the two are not confused.

The filling goes in cold and is sealed completely. Warm, it softens the potato mass from within and the kaldun opens in the pan.

After frying they stew in soured cream for fifteen minutes. The frying gives the crust and the stewing the softness inside; neither alone does the job.

Worth knowing

• — Seal the filling completely. Through any gap the meat juices escape into the oil and the kaldun falls apart as you turn it.
• — Turn them once, with a wide spatula. Every extra movement breaks the potato shell.
• — Let the soured cream down with a ladle of water before stewing. Thick, it catches on the bottom; thinned, it makes a sauce.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

620 kcal

Protein

26 g

Fat

38 g

Carbs

44 g

More from Belarus

• Draniki — Potato pancakes from raw grated potato, fried to a crisp edge and served with soured cream.
• Machanka — A thick pork and sausage gravy on soured cream, into which pancakes are dipped. Hence the name.
• Kholodnik — A cold beetroot soup on kefir with sorrel, cucumber and egg, pink and sharply sour.