Vareniki Recipe

Everybody in Russia knows how to cook lazy vareniki because it is an easy, fast and satisfying dish. Although, there are lots of variants of fillings such as cabbage, berries, cottage cheese, mushrooms, fruits, cheese, perhaps the most popular filling is potato with fried onions. Children are very fond of sweet dumplings and can be involved in the process of cooking the dish though it demands a lot of patience from parents.

The dumplings are on a par with the dishes from unleavened dough, such as dumplings, khinkali, gnocchi, and ravioli and are very popular in Eastern European cuisine. In Russia dumplings are considered a Ukrainian dish. We all remember the scene in Gogol’s famous short story The Night Before Christmas in which one of the heroes Patsyuk eats delicious dumplings, which dipped themselves in sour cream. Dumplings are the closest to the modern recipe “lazy dumplings”. They are called “lazy” because the cooking process is simplified to kneading the dough together with filling. Form of lazy pierogi varies, but most often the dough is rolled into a long roll, then cut into small pieces, which are put into boiling salted water.

The dough is usually made of wheat flour. Previously it was believed that the whiter dumplings or galushki are, the higher the skill of the hostess is. The choice of flour is so wide that you can experiment with taste and color of the dough. For example, if you add spinach puree or other greens to the batter, it will turn green, similarly, you can use tomato paste, pumpkin or carrot puree.

Today we introduce the recipe of lazy dumplings with cottage cheese, which can be considered a full meal, and you can prepare them as an afternoon snack.

Ingredients:

Directions:

Cottage cheese should be smooth, you can use the blender or mash it through a sieve. Combine cheese,  egg, salt, sugar and vanilla, whisk until smooth. Sift the flour gradually in several turns, until the dough is soft, but is not sticking to your hands. You can optionally sprinkle the workspace with flour. Roll out the dough into a long roll, cut into small pieces. Some dry dumplings for 20 minutes before boiling, some throw them immediately in the water. Pour the melted butter or sour cream onto the cooked dumplings. You can add any jam of your taste.