Pelmeni

Meat dumplings

This dish was a total cooking disaster for me. It put me off making anything else. Tatiana's grandmother was right, it was "too much effort". Especially for a pelmeni novice like me.

First of all, the dough was too hard too roll. My arms were sore from rolling it to 1.5cm (at most). It was definitely a lot thicker in the middle. Then, my grandparents gave me a special thing that put the pelmeni together. Rather than making it easier for me, I ended up wasting a lot of the ingredients because I couldn't use this tool properly and having to fix the edges myself.

Since I rolled the dough too thick, I had a lot of filling left over with which I didn't know what to do. I ended up making a couple of kotlety (Russian meatballs) at my husband's suggestion.

When we finally tried the end result, my husband (having never tried pelmeni before) knew immediately the dough was too thick. It still had the real pelmeni taste so I wasn't too disappointed after all the trouble I had with the recipe.

I later told my grandma about my cooking episode and she said, "Don't you know, we always buy pelmeni. Making them is too much effort".

Ratings

husband: 2½ / 5

wife: 3/5