A tasty Tatar soup with tiny dumplings (RECIPE)

Dumplings (or pelmeni in Russian) have always been a popular hot dish in Russia’s regions. Sometimes the dumpling dish becomes a soup, which is certainly true for the Tatars, the second largest ethnic nation in the Russian Federation.

Crimean Tatars call a meat broth soup with tiny homemade pelmeni by the name of Kashyk-ash, or the “Spoon soup”. In fact, a housewife’s skill is evaluated with a spoon: the more dumplings that fit into the spoon the more skillful the young woman is considered to be.

I wrote 'young’ for a reason. This soup is prepared by girls of marriageable age in order to impress a potential mother-in-law and the rest of the groom's female relatives. In the Volga region, among the Tatars, small dumplings with broth are considered a dish for the groom, and it also demonstrates the girl’s culinary skills.

In fact, this dish consists of very small dumplings (the size is determined with a thimble or a ring) made from a thin dough in broth that’s pre-boiled with meat on a bone and vegetables, but which are removed before serving. At the end, a lot of greens and sour cream are added to the dumplings.

The perfect version of this soup should have anywhere from 6 to 12 dumplings in one spoon. As you can guess, the process of making dumplings is quite exhausting and can be considered a very hard test to pass. Let’s try to cook this authentic dish together!

Ingredients for 8 servings:

Dough:

Water - 300 ml
Flour - 700 g
Salt - 1 tsp
Vegetable oil - 3 tbsps

Filling:

Minced meat - 800 g
Onion - 2 pcs
Salt to taste
Ground black pepper to taste
Egg - 1 pc

Broth (soup):

Carrot - 1 pc
Onion - 1 pc
Chopped greens - 3 tbsps
Garlic - 2 cloves
Salt to taste
Ground black pepper to taste
Vegetable oil - ½ tbsp
Butter - 20 g
Bay leaf - 2 pcs

Serving:

Herbs to taste
Sour cream 15% to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Preparation:

1. Knead the dough from the sifted flour, hot water, salt and vegetable oil. The dough should be elastic and steep enough so that no additional portion of flour is used during rolling and sculpting. It should not stick to one’s hands at all, as it also dries very quickly.

2. Wrap the dough in cling film and place in the refrigerator for 60 minutes.

3. For the filling, cut the onion finely.

4. Then put it into a bowl with the minced meat and mix with spices, salt and an egg. Do not add water.

5. Cut the rolled thin layer of dough into squares with an edge of 1.5-2 cm each. Put a little minced meat on each, take one and fold the wrapper and pinch the top of the rim to seal. Make 2-3 pleats from each end. Then press all around the edge to completely seal. If you’re accustomed to some other folding techniques, you can use anything you want to make your dumplings special.

6. Put the finished dumplings on the board sprinkled with flour. In total, I got about 200 dumplings, of which 100 are small. I froze the bigger ones for the future.

7. Now, time to peel carrots, onions, and garlic (to taste). Grate the carrots on a coarse grater, chop the onion to your taste, and chop the garlic.

8. Heat the mix of vegetable oil and butter in a saucepan that you’re going to use to cook the soup. Add vegetables and simmer until the carrots are soft, about 5 minutes. Mix from time to time.

9. Add 3 liters of water and bring it to a boil over medium heat. Next, add 80-100 dumplings and cook for 5 more minutes or less. Add bay leaf. Add chopped herbs, salt, and pepper.

10. The soup should be served hot. It’s advisable to serve with sour cream or full-fat yogurt separately. Let everyone season it as they wish. Enjoy!