Thursday, January 20, 2011

Dumplings, or how we call them - pelmeni!

Hello guys. Sorry for not posting this recipe sooner but i was too busy studying for my exams and today was the only free day for me.So today I was making dumplings, or how we call them - pelmeni. Here's a list of what you will need:
  • 500gr ground beef
  • 2 cups of flour
  • 1 egg
  • 1 small onion
  • salt and pepper
  • 1/2 cup of water (warm)

The meat is missing from this picture. Also ignore the extra egg :)
 Start by pouring the 2 cups of flour in to a bowl

Then add the egg. Also add a pinch of salt.


Now it's time to get your hands dirty and start to mix it all together, slowly add the water to this mix and keep on mixing it with your hands until you get something like this
Also it shouldn't be sticking to your hands anymore. If it still is sticking to your hands, add some more water.
Now put the dough aside and let it rest while we prepare the meat.
Put the meat in a different bowl


Now grate the onion in to the meat

Now add the salt and pepper. Optionally you could also add some dill or other good stuff. I didn't have any greens at home :(
Now take a board or you could just use your table and pour some flour on it. This is done so that our dough doesn't stick to the board.



Now you should roll out the dough until it is thin, but no too thin or else it will open up while we boil them.

like this

Now take a cup and start to make little circles in the dough by pressing the cup in the dough.



dalmatians ftw

Now put the meat in the little dough circles and start to close them up.

Be sure to pinch them up nice and tight or else they will open up when will be boiling them.



No pour water in a pot and bring it to a boiling temperature. When the water is boiling put our pelmeni inside the water one by one. Now wait until they rise up. You should boil them for about 5-7minutes. If you are unsure if they are ready, just take one out and slice it open. If the meat is red then you still need to boil them, if the meat is brownish - they're ready.

Now take them out one by one or just drain the water from the pot. Then just put them in a plate, put some sour cream on top of them and add some more pepper or any other seasoning if you wish. Believe me - they taste good. Optionally you can make them with sweet filling instead of meat. For example - you could put any kind of jam in the middle, blueberries etc. Cheers!

so tasty!

Monday, January 17, 2011

A feast!

Hi guys. So yesterday me and my friends decided that it would be pretty cool to cook a feast for all of us. We all had almost no experience in cooking, so this could only go well, right?




Off to the supermarket in the speed of light!
Selecting some red wine for the dinner
Our original idea was to cook steaks, baked potatoes in the oven, potato chips and chocolate brownies. But we were really upset once we found out that all of the  meat for steaks has been bought out. So we just got ourselves some chicken fillets. After we had all the ingredients we went over to our friends house.

ready to cook!
We started peeling the potatoes and grating the cheese for the chicken fillets. Then we decided to start making those potato chips, but we had forgot to buy rapeseed oil *facepalm* at this point I should mention that we started to cook at 11 in the evening and in Latvia shops usually close up at around 10 o'clock so we had to send out two guys to a 24/7 shop that is pretty far away. Also I should mention that it was fucking freezing outside ( -14C or 32F ). Meanwhile we started to prepare our muffins.

pouring out the melted chocolate with different nuts and dried fruit
Also started to cook chicken fillets dipped in egg & flour

After some while our friends returned with the rapeseed oil - great success! We baked our potatoes in the oven and also started to cook our potato chips

the first ones that made it out of the pot
After some while, we were finally done ( actually It was already 2am lol )
So, i present to you our finished meals.



potato chips with garlic salt and dill

cabbage salad with vinegar and oil




baked potatoes in the oven with dill
chicken fillet dipped in egg & flour with too much cheese :)


after this we were so full that we decided to stay for a while and drink some beers. After all this i was home at around 4am, but it was a lot of fun. I'm really excited to start cooking. Btw tomorrow I will have a new recipe here - dumpling, or as we call them here - pelmeni. It's an really easy dish, but we all have to start somewhere right?





























































A little bit about me.

I'm currently 21 years old. I live in Riga, Latvia. I'm studying psychology for three years now, the next year will be my last one when i will receive my bachelors degree. My hobbies include - weight lifting, basketball, volleyball, partying, listening/reading books, listening to music A LOT and basically just having a good time, oh and hopefully cooking will become one of my new hobbies. I'm 6'4 (1.95m) and 189lbs (86kg).


And a picture of me. Bye!

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Hello there!

Hello and welcome to my newly started blog. In this blog you'll hopefully learn how to cook different meals together with me. I really am a newbie when it comes to cooking. Sure i can bake a batch of potatoes or cook some pasta but that's about it. So i started this blog where I can document my learning process. I will try to do make at least one meal a weak and I will take pictures whilst I'm doing it, so you guys can enjoy this experience too :)