Pirog is a Russian double-crust pie with various fillings, from sweet to savory. The dough can be made with flour, butter, eggs, or yeast. It can be filled with fruit, nuts, cheese, vegetables, or meats. It is usually served with a dill-based dip and yoghurt or sour cream.
A pirog is a cake of Russian origin, but it doesn’t have a single recipe. In general, this is a double-crust pie, with only a top layer of crust or open-faced. The filling can be anything from apples to ground meats, ranging from sweet desserts to quiches that can be served as a main course. Most preparations call for a rectangular cake with a puff pastry pattern on top. Such pies, especially those filled with meat, tend to be eaten alongside some type of dill-based dip and yoghurt or sour cream.
One difference between the various pirog recipes is the type of dough used. A simple pie dough made from flour, butter, and eggs is used for recipes that call for jams or fruit. Dough that contains yeast and has been allowed to rise can be used for almost any type of filling. A third and lesser-seen type of dough is very flowy and can be made like a crepe or pancake, with the ingredients arranged between stacks. The shape of the pan in which the pasta is set can also be pretty much anything, although square and rectangular pans are more common than round ones.
A sweet pirog may contain apples or other fruit that have been chopped or diced. The jams can also be used as a whole filling, although the quality must be good; otherwise, they may ooze too much liquid or cook into a thick, sugary lump. Another option is a combination of nuts, fresh fruit and cheese that is cooked just until runny and then allowed to cool and set before being served hot.
There are a large number of quiches that can be made. Some common ingredients that appear in tasty pirog recipes include cabbage, diced hard-boiled eggs, and onions. These ingredients can be complemented by meats such as ground beef or pork, salmon or shredded chicken.
With a few tweaks to the basic dough recipe, a vegetarian pirog can be made. The cake can be filled with grains such as kasha or it can consist only of roasted vegetables with some spices. Mushrooms can be chopped, fried, and then mixed with onions to make a mushroom pirog. Rice can also be stuffed into the cake in a layer at the bottom.
Unlike a sweet pirog, the savory ingredients are fully cooked and allowed to cool before being placed inside the pastry crust. Depending on the ingredients, an egg and flour mixture is also poured into the shell to help form a firmer interior. The finished cake can be served with a sauce made from chopped dill, sour cream or yogurt and white wine, if desired.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
