Cherry varenyky

Ingredients

• Plain flour450 g
• Kefir250 ml
• Egg1
• Bicarbonate of soda½ tsp
• Pitted cherries600 g
• Sugar120 g
• Cornflour3 tbsp
• Butter50 g
• Soured creamto taste
• Salt1 pinch

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

   Mix the kefir with the bicarbonate and leave it five minutes, until it bubbles. Add the egg, salt and flour and knead for eight minutes.

   15 min

2. 2

   Cover the dough and rest it half an hour. Meanwhile let the cherries drain in a colander.

   30 min

3. 3

   Mix the starch with the sugar and toss the cherries in it right before shaping.

   3 min

4. 4

   Roll the dough to two millimetres, cut discs, put three or four cherries on each and seal the rim dry, pressing the air out.

   25 min

5. 5

   Boil in batches in a wide pot of salted water. Two minutes after they float, lift them out and butter them at once.

   12 min

About the dish

The perennial problem with cherry varenyky is juice bursting through the dough. The fix is simple: toss the fruit in starch and sugar five minutes before shaping. The starch sets the juice into a jelly inside.

The sugar goes into the filling at the last moment. Added earlier, it draws the juice out of the fruit before it ever reaches the dough.

A kefir dough is softer than the classical water one and holds a sweet filling better — it is more elastic and tears less at the seal.

Worth knowing

• — Frozen cherries are not thawed: toss them in starch while still frozen and shape immediately. That loses the least juice.
• — Air trapped inside expands and splits the seam. As you crimp, press the filling down and drive the air to the edge.
• — Do not throw away the syrup left in the pot: the varenyky are served with it poured over, alongside soured cream.

Nutrition

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

Calories

520 kcal

Protein

12 g

Fat

12 g

Carbs

92 g

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