Categories: BeefMain Dishes

Russian Fried Pies with Meat and Rice Stuffing

Fried pies (piroshki/pyrizhky), resembling individual size fried buns of yeast dough with stuffing, are very popular in all countries of ex-USSR. There are many stuffing variations for these: fruity and sweet or savory.

This is recipe for piroshki with boiled meat and rice stuffing – meat left over after preparing broth or soup is usually used to prepare these. And later fried pies can be served together with that soup or broth.

Piroshki are good choice if you need to take food to-go: they don’t require refrigeration to keep them fresh (for 1-2 days).

Ingredients:

  • Sunflower oil for frying

  • Stuffing
    Boiled beef prepared from about 1.5lb of raw meat with bones
  • 1 big onion
  • 1/3 cup of rice
  • 1 tablespoon of sunflower oil
  • Ground black pepper to taste
  • Salt to taste

  • Dough
    About 4 cups of all purpose flour
  • 1 cup of milk
  • 1 pack dry yeast (1/4 oz)
  • 1 egg
  • 1 teaspoon of sugar
  • 2-3 tablespoons of oil
  • 1/2 teaspoon of salt

How to prepare, step-by-step:

  1. Prepare ingredients: boiled meat usually left over from cooking broth or soup will work great for this recipe, just cool it down a bit and clean from bones and veins, tendons, etc before mincing:
    Russian Fried Pies with Meat and Rice Stuffing Recipe: Step 1
  2. I had some stuffing left over from cooking stuffed crepes, so I decided to use it for this recipe, however here is a step-by-step instructions how to prepare stuffing from scratch using ingredients listed under “stuffing” above:
    Boil rice
    Fry onions
    Clean and mince boiled meat

    Add onions to meat
    Add rice
    Season with salt and ground black pepper to taste


  3. Prepare unsweetened yeast dough using ingredients listed under “dough” above, I like here a short recap, see more detailed recipe here:
    Pour warm milk mixed with sugar and dry yeast to bowl with flour
    Set for 15 mins in warm place to rise
    Add egg mixed with salt

    Add oil
    Mix and add more flour until dough gets dense
    Then knead it thoroughly by hands


  4. For this kind of fried pies you don’t need to wait for dough to rise before assembling them, usually until last pie is assembled – first one is ready to be fried; so slice a piece of freshly made yeast dough with a knife (keep the remaining dough covered with towel to prevent drying):
    Russian Fried Pies with Meat and Rice Stuffing Recipe: Step 4

  5. Form pies (depending on the size of pies you want to get make dough pieces bigger or smaller):
    Slice piece of dough into equal size smaller pieces
    From each piece of dough form round dough circle (use rolling pin if needed)
    Take a dough circle to one hand

    Arrange about table spoon of stuffing in the middle of it
    Fold dough circle in half and seal sides together from beginning to the end
    Flat a pie so joint is on top


  6. Repeat for the rest of dough and stuffing, arrange ready pies on a wooden board dusted with a bit of flour:
    Russian Fried Pies with Meat and Rice Stuffing Recipe: Step 6
  7. When all pies are assembled, warm up skillet with 2-3 tablespoons of oil over moderate heat, and fry couple of pies from one side until golden brown:
    Russian Fried Pies with Meat and Rice Stuffing Recipe: Step 7
  8. Then flip them to the other side, depending of the size you may want to fry them of thin sides as well:
    Russian Fried Pies with Meat and Rice Stuffing Recipe: Step 8
  9. Repeat for all pies, once ready replace cooked pies with new ones on the skillet and move cooked ones to a big plate. Serve as an addition to broth or soup or as a separate meal:
    Russian Fried Pies with Meat and Rice Stuffing
Enjoy!

View Comments

  • Very nice website Julia and a great recipe! I'm from USSR too :) and I also have a blog, it's mostly about parenting but I also post recipes once in a while. Slyunki tekut ;)

  • They looked great but sadly I couldn't manage to have the same lovely pirozki like on a picture. I followed the recipe very accurate but still, the result was upsetting :(... I would like to see other reviews. Does anyone else tried to make it by this recipe? Did it work?

    • If you give me a hint on how exactly yours were different, I may be able to say what went wrong. Sorry that it didn't work for you :(