Pies with liver (as in Soviet times): the best recipes

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

The times of the USSR have long since sunk into oblivion, but they left quite a lot of nostalgic memories for the children of that generation. One of such bright children's moments was a fried liver pie. At one time, all Soviet children ate these pies, drinking tomato juice and burning their tongues. If you suddenly want to reproduce the taste of Soviet childhood in your own kitchen, then we offer you some simple recipes.

Ingredients for dough

In order to cook rosy and tasty fried Soviet liver pies, you will need: 500-600 grams of flour (highest grade), six grams of fresh yeast (active), two tablespoons of granulated sugar, a teaspoon of s alt, one a glass (200 ml) of water, 20 grams of vegetable oil.

Ingredients for liver filling

For the filling you will need both organ meats and vegetables, spices, herbs. The meat filling for liver pies is beef lungs, liver (veal or beef), heart. The standard recipe calls for 300 grams of each meat product.

As for vegetables, thenhere, many act on the principle of "an amateur." Someone does not like a lot of onions, someone prefers not to put carrots. But in the classic recipe should be present: parsley root, one large carrot, 4-5 onions.

Spices: s alt, ground black pepper, black peppercorns, bay leaf, cloves.

For frying: 0.6-0.8 ml vegetable oil.

Required utensils for work

A very large amount of work is the processing and preparation of liver - stuffing. Pies with liver, as in Soviet times, must be cooked in large quantities. For cooking you will need: a five-liter saucepan (for cooking liver), a frying pan (for frying pies) and a meat grinder.

Cooking stuffing

Preparing the filling for liver pies is a rather productive, voluminous and time-consuming process. Therefore, you should start with the liver. The filling ingredients are prepared in different ways. To cook the right liver pies, as in Soviet times, you need to boil the heart and lungs, and stew the liver in a frying pan.

Before you boil the offal, they must be thoroughly washed, cut into small pieces. In the water where the liver is boiled, parsley root, a whole onion and a carrot, cut into several large pieces, should be added. Initially, cook everything on high heat. As soon as the water boils, reduce the heat, remove the resulting foam and cook slowly. Approximate cooking time for liver is two hours.

S alt and add bayleaf follows only at the end of cooking. After the lungs and liver are ready, the water should not be poured out. Let the offal grow and reach, as experienced chefs say. Thus, fried Soviet pies with liver will turn out to be more juicy and rich in meat flavors.

As for the preparation of the liver, it is placed in a frying pan, poured with water and stewed for half an hour. After stewing, the liver is cut. Finely chopped onion is fried in a separate pan. The liver is added to it only when the onion is finally browned.

After these manipulations, all by-products are passed through a meat grinder. Onions are also finely chopped with the help of a kitchen assistant. S alt, ground allspice is added.

Preparing the dough

It is important to remember that in order to cook the right pies with liver, as in Soviet times, you must use only live yeast to prepare the dough. Before preparing the dough, they are diluted in warm water and placed in a warm place until a "cap" appears. While the yeast is infused, all the other ingredients for the dough are mixed. Yeast is added to the resulting mass. The final test is being kneaded.

In order for the dough to turn out rich and fluffy, it should be properly kneaded in the process of raising. It is better if you divide the entire volume of dough into three equal parts and place them in different dishes. As soon as the dough rises, it should be kneaded, shifted several times along and several times across. This is done two orthree times. In this case, you will achieve the perfect result, as in "those" times in canteens.

Shaping the pie

Many housewives are faced with the problem of dough sticking to their hands and countertops. To prevent this from happening, use vegetable oil. Lubricate both the table and your own hands with oil. So the dough will be pliable, will not remain on your hands or the work surface. How to cook pies with liver, if there has never been a special friendship with the dough? The problem is solvable. Follow the instructions and you'll be fine.

First, you should divide each of the already existing three parts of the test into four more. Form each piece into a tight ball. From this ball, a pie will be formed. You can fix the pies as you like: form a pigtail, pinch the edges, etc. The dough for pies with liver should be pliable and obedient. Do not be afraid to do something wrong, you can always mix a piece and form a pie again.

Important tip: don't put too much stuffing. Fried patty can easily crack during cooking.

Cooking pies

Pies with liver are fried, as in Soviet times, in oil. We take a spacious frying pan or pan, pour a fairly large amount of vegetable oil into it and wait until it boils. Gently drop the pie into the boiling oil and fry on both sides until a delicious golden brown.

Remember to get rid of excess oil. Pat patties dry with paper towelsor napkins. Liver pies, as in Soviet times, should be fried, but not oily. Remember your childhood, then your hands didn’t get particularly dirty and oil didn’t flow down your “mustache”.

Orskie pies

Pies from the Orenburg region were famous throughout the Union. At that time they were sold in huge cans. A special machine was used for cooking, so the pies turned out to be perfectly shaped, with even edges.

The secret of their preparation lies in the filling. For cooking, not beef or veal offal is used, but chicken. For cooking you will need: half a kilo of chicken liver (stomach, liver, kidneys, heart), five large onions, s alt and pepper (to taste).

The cooking process is exactly the same as in the first recipe. Only the dough becomes a little more liquid. It should spread in the hand and form a kind of cake. You don't even need to roll out, which saves time. The filling is placed in the middle of such a cake, the pie is stuck around the edges. After that, you need to make a small sausage or sausage out of the pie. Roll it several times with your hands, as if twisting something. So the pie will look more like those pies with liver, as they cooked in Orenburg in Soviet times and were called Orsky throughout the country.

Secrets of cooking liver from connoisseurs

Professional chefs advise cooking liver a little differently. Not only offal and onions are used, but also garlic. Professionals say thatliver pies that do not include the addition of garlic do not turn out so fragrant and tasty.

The rest of the process is the same as above. The only exception: when you have already cooked the liver and chopped it in a meat grinder, the resulting minced meat should be fried in a pan with the addition of fragrant oil. So the filling will be more fragrant and pliable in the process of packing into a pie.

Liver pies can be cooked not only in a frying pan, deep-fried, but also in the oven. If you're trying to eat less fried foods and avoid so much oil in your cooking, then the oven option is perfect. By the way, if you bake pies in the oven, then for cooking you can use not only yeast dough, but also puff pastry. But remember: it will be more modern, not the Soviet version.