Russian Season

Last night we cooked a dish which I first tried this summer in the beautiful Slovakia. The dish is called Parene Buchty (pronounced bookhti). These are a sort of large steam-cooked dumplings with a filling inside, which makes it quite a heavy food, but we tried to adapt the original recipe by taking fine flour instead of coarse flour and making the dumplings smaller in size (I think ours were about twice as small).

I also spent some time at the supermarket choosing the right plum jam for the filling, as I needed a very thick, yet not gelatinous jam. If it is jelly-like, it will melt too soon and may start leaking, you know. Finally I discovered a jam I had never tried before, which turned out to be pretty good. And it never bubbled or leaked.

So, if you want a substantial, folksy Eastern European dessert, here is the Parene Buchty recipe.

Ingredients

250 ml milk
450 g wheat flour
1 egg
350 g thick plum jam
25 g yeast
2 tbsp sugar
A pinch of salt
1-2 tbsp vegetable oil

Makes 24 buchtas (3-4 pieces per serving)

Warm the milk a little bit, just so that it’s a bit warmer than room temperature. Dissolve the yeast in approximately half of the milk.

Add the remaining milk, flour, egg, sugar, and salt. Beat the dough with a mixer and then knead by hand a little bit. Cover the dough and leave it for 30-40 minutes, until it rises approximately double.

When the dough has risen, roll it out about 7 mm thick, and cut in 24 square pieces. Put a teaspoon of plum jam

on each square. Make sure you do not put too much filling, otherwise it will tear the pastry and leak!

Now, seal the buchtas by folding them as envelopes first and then sealing tightly. Put the buchtas on a flour-sprinkled surface.

In a saucepan, bring to boil 2 cups of water and place a steamer over the boiling water. Brush the steamer with some vegetable oil to prevent buchtas from sticking to it!
Place a few buchtas in the steamer. Leave some space between them, as they will grow as they cook. We placed 6 pieces at a time, but of course this depends on the size of your steamer and saucepan.

Note the time as you put the last buchta in the steamer and cook them for 20 minutes. Keep the water boiling. Add more water if necessary as you start to cook the next set.

There are many traditional ways to serve Parene Buchty, as I have learned. For example, when I was in Slovakia, we served them with chocolate pudding sauce; you might as well serve them with melted butter and sprinkle with cinnamon and caster sugar; or use any other type of dressing. My Mom’s and my choice was plain chocolate dressing, as we figured this type of dessert required a simple garnish.

Note: ready buchtas should be spongy and moist inside, like a slightly undercooked bread.