Pelmeni Dough
Ingredients
900 g
- Durum wheat flour 2 cups (260 g)
- Soft wheat flour 2 cups (260 g)
- Egg 1
- Milk 2.5% 1½ cups (300 ml)
- Vegetable oil 1 tbsp
- Salt ½ tsp (3 g)
Step-by-step recipe
Mixing the dough
Pelmeni dough comes together very quickly. The whole process is just combining flour and liquid, then kneading. I use a mix of milk and egg at room temperature.
Be sure to sift the flour. It often has lumps and bits of debris that need to go. It can also have pests, and flour like that shouldn’t be used at all.
Pour all the flour, both soft and durum, into a large bowl. Many people knead dough right on the counter, but given the small amount, a bowl is more convenient. Most likely you won’t need to add more flour while kneading. Add ½ tsp fine salt (3 g). Crack the egg into a measuring cup and top it up with milk so the total comes to about 350 ml. By the way, if you want more dough, just scale all the ingredients up proportionally. Pour the milk and egg mixture into the flour.
At first you can stir the dough with an ordinary fork, then carry on with your hands. At first it may seem the dough is too stiff and needs more liquid. Don’t add any. Just keep kneading until there’s no dry flour left in the bowl. The dough will be a bit “stiff,” and that’s normal.
Resting the dough
Cover the dough with a cloth and leave it on the counter for 15–20 minutes for the gluten to relax and hydrate.
Meanwhile you can make the pelmeni filling. We use a mix of pork and beef with onion: one medium onion for every half kilo of meat, all put through the meat grinder. Simple seasoning: salt, black pepper, sometimes a little soy sauce.
Once the gluten has developed, make a well in the dough and pour in 1 tbsp of regular sunflower oil. Knead the dough thoroughly. The oil makes the finished pelmeni dough soft and pliable. At the same time it stays thin and keeps the wrapper intact around the filling during boiling.
Rolling and shaping
Pinch off a piece of dough the size of a hen’s egg. Keep the rest covered. Roll out the dough with a rolling pin or any pasta machine. I use a hand-cranked machine that rolls dough into thin sheets of adjustable thickness. For homemade pelmeni I usually roll the dough to about 1 mm.
Cut circles from the thin rolled sheet with a 6–7 cm pastry ring. Each piece gives 12–15 circles. Put a little filling in the middle, a ball about the size of a cherry. Since the dough contains oil, moisten the edge with a wet finger. Carefully fold the dough in half over the filling and pinch the edges well. Bring the ends together and press to seal. It’s easy.
Freezing and boiling
Lay the finished pelmeni out on a board or on plastic wrap and freeze them, so they don’t stick together.
A small tip: to avoid using flour while shaping, do all the work with the dough on a silicone mat, as the dough doesn’t stick to it at all.
Boil the pelmeni in salted water with spices and a bay leaf, for a few minutes after they float to the surface. Or add them to soup shortly before it’s done.
If you have dough left over, don’t throw it away or freeze it. Better to roll it out and make ravioli with farmer’s cheese, or simple garganelli, ridged pasta tubes. These can be frozen too and cooked for breakfast.
Calories and macros
339 kcal
100 g
- Protein10.3 g13% of kcal
- Fat5 g14% of kcal
- Carbs59.2 g73% of kcal
Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.
To Get It Right
Which flour to use
For pelmeni dough, best is a half-and-half mix: regular finely milled soft wheat flour and durum wheat flour (I use Italian semola di grano duro). It makes a springy dough that doesn’t swell during boiling and stays thin. If you have no durum flour, make the dough with 4 cups of regular flour (520 g): it will be softer, and 15 minutes of rest is enough.
A stiff dough is right
Don’t add more milk, even if the pelmeni dough feels too firm. Kneading and rolling it takes some effort, but after resting and the oil it turns pliable, and the pelmeni come out thin and don’t fall apart.
Without a pasta machine
With a rolling pin, also roll out the pelmeni dough in small pieces, turning the sheet until it is almost see-through. On a silicone mat you need no flour, but a clean counter is enough for many: this dough hardly sticks.
Making the dough ahead
Pelmeni dough can be made ahead: wrap it in a bag or put it in a lidded container and keep it in the fridge for up to a day. Let it sit at room temperature for 20–30 minutes before shaping.
Have your own trick for this recipe?
Questions and answers
Which pelmeni dough is better: with water or with milk?
We mix it with milk and egg: the dough comes out thin, firm and doesn’t fall apart when boiled. The classic water dough is good too: flour, egg, salt and water. Make it the same way, replacing the milk with the same amount of water.
Do you need egg in pelmeni dough?
Not necessarily, but with egg the dough is firmer and holds its shape better when boiled. Without egg, add more milk so the liquid is still 350 ml. Some people put only the egg white in the dough and the yolk in the filling.
How many pelmeni does this dough make?
About 900 g of dough, which is 100–150 small pelmeni of 12–15 g each. You’ll need about 1 kg of filling for that many.
How much milk for 1 kg of flour?
The 4 cups of flour (520 g) in the recipe are about 580 g. For 1 kg of flour, scale everything up about 1.7 times: 2 eggs plus milk to about 600 ml in total, 1 tsp salt (6 g) and 2 tbsp oil.
Can I use this dough for vareniki?
Yes, readers make both pelmeni and vareniki with it. It also works for Chinese jiaozi, ravioli and other filled dumplings.