Kurnik

[igenlode]

I used a bag of the left-over meat from my first-ever roast chicken of about a month ago to make a kurnik - a somewhat economical one, with only one egg in the filling (I really couldn't justify using more than three in one dish, and I did use egg in the pie-dough even if I didn't use butter, and in the buckwheat!) and with onion fried in oil replacing mushrooms fried in butter ;-p I put in all the dill I could spare, but the young plants keep frizzling in the heat. I think their roots are dying of being baked, as the ones nearest the outside of the pot go first.

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The meat didn't look like very much when it was all done up in a plastic bag, but it turned into a surprisingly large amount of filling and I had trouble sealing the top of the pie. I did remember to bake it seam-down this time!

Comments

[watervole]

Reminds me of a very large upsidedown Cornish pasty - but with a different filling.

[igenlode]

That's pretty much what it is, only baked with a raised enriched yeast dough instead of shortcrust (or, commercially, puff pastry) and in a vertical alignment rather than a horizontal one - probably because it doesn't contain [much] gravy and is thus fairly solid inside.
A Cornish pasty is made with raw meat and vegetables, which create a thickened juice and shrink down when cooked. Russian recipes tend to be assembled from ingredients all pre-cooked separately, and Russian pies are traditionally eaten alongside soup to provide the necessary moisture. I just used the vegetable water -- I'm not sure Russian pies are traditionally served with green vegetables, but I felt like it!

[igenlode]

The dill that survived to the winter is thriving by comparison; as I suspected, it just doesn't like hot weather.