Caramelised Onion Varenyky

My family lived together with a Russian family for most of my childhood. For that reason, I had some wonderful early food experiences. My favourite foods included salmon selyodka (pickled fish) and roe. Those, I wouldn't eat anymore (unless someone makes a vegan version...). But my absolute favourite food was sweet varenyky filled with apples. Varenyky are the Ukrainian-Russian version of pierogi.

For a long time I was put off making my own varenyky because of how hard I thought it would be. Then I tried making them, and it was really hard. The dough was extremely delicate. It stuck and tore. A few weeks ago, I discovered this pierogi dough on Vegan Sandra's website and tried again. The dough is a pleasure to work with. No sticking and no tearing!

When I was a child, a dumpling without apples inside wasn't really a dumpling for me. I can vividly remember the deep feeling of disappointment and offence I had after biting into a potato pirozhki (baked dumpling). These days I love potato-filled dumplings, and would be over the moon if someone made them for me. Not everything has to be sweet! But my favourite part is always the fried onions on top, so I thought I'd put them inside. Here are varenyky filled to bursting with caramelised onion, with a little potato to bind the filling.

Caramelised Onion Varenyky

Makes 16 varenyky, serves 2

Ingredients

1/2 a recipe of the crispy and simple pierogi dough from Vegan Sandra
5 onions
1 potato (200 ml)

Method

1. Chop the onions. Fry them in a little oil over medium heat for 30-40 minutes, until nicely browned. Stir every now and again and reduce the heat if they start to burn.

2. Peel, chop and boil the potato. Mash it and mix with the onions. Add salt and pepper. Divide the dough into 16 equal pieces and roll them into balls. Cover with a cloth.

3. Roll out the first ball into a circle on a lightly floured surface. Put 1-2 tsp of filling in the middle and pinch the varenyky shut. Put it on a lightly floured tray and cover with a cloth. Repeat for remaining balls of dough.

4. Boil the varenyky until they float, and then for an additional 2-3 minutes. Serve with margarine or vegan sour cream.

Best Dinner Recipes

I really enjoy trying out recipes from other blogs, so I thought I'd write a best-of. These are the best dinners I've cooked and managed to take a photo of in the last few weeks. First up: Better-than-Tuna salad on The Fig Tree, originally from The Vegan Table by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau. This salad is great on sandwiches, in pitas or on its own. It's also a great way to get your veggies - it's full of celery, capsicum and carrots.

I also recently made this Sambar from Hungry Desi, a food blog full of delicious-looking and mostly vegan recipes. You can put nearly any vegetable you like in your sambar. I used onions this time and it was very good.

And because the recipes on Hungry Desi are just that appealing, I made another one, Kadai Tofu. It was wonderfully spicy and flavourful. I replaced the milk with soy milk. I expect a little coconut milk would also work great.

That's all for this week, hope you enjoyed the recipes! Let me know if you try any of them out.

Zwiebelmett (Mince with Onions)

Zwiebelmett is basically mince with onions and spices, which people often eat spread on buns. I've never tried real Zwiebelmett, since I had already been vegan for some years before I came to Germany. I'm not sure who first thought of the idea of making it out of rice cakes, but there are many versions of this recipe online in German.

While I was researching this, I found out that Germans sometimes shape Mett into a "Mettigel" (a mince hedgehog) for parties, and decorate it with onions for spikes. Definitely going to have to try that for my next party!

A Mettigel (Picture from Wikipedia)

Zwiebelmett (Mince with Onions)

Makes 600 ml - enough for a small Mettigel!

Ingredients

18 thin or 9 thick rice cakes (100 g)
1 onion
3 tbsp tomato paste
1 tsp salt
pepper

Method

1. Crumble the rice cakes. Add 300 ml water and mix well. Mince the onion. Mix the onion, tomato paste, salt and pepper with the rice cakes.

2. Check the consistency. If it's too dry, add 50 ml more water. Refrigerate for several hours or overnight. When you're ready to serve, taste and add a bit more salt and pepper if you like. This is nice on buns by itself or with some chives or a few slices of cucumber on top.

Zupa Ogórkowa (Polish Pickle Soup)

I went to Poland recently and thoroughly enjoyed all the vegan food I could get my hands on. Since then, I've been bookmarking hundreds of recipes to try out. I'm not up to making vegan smoked sausage yet, but I have tried my hand at some Polish soups. Zupa Ogórkowa consists of potatoes, grated pickles and vegetables in a rich, milky broth.

Zupa Ogórkowa

Serves 3
Based on this recipe

Ingredients

1 leek
2 carrots
1 onion
1.25 litres vegetable stock
1 bay leaf
6 peppercorns
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
6 pickles
4 potatoes
250 ml soy milk

Method

1. Slice the leeks. Dice the carrot and the first onion. Add to a soup pot with the stock and bring to the boil. Simmer until the vegetables are soft. Add the bay leaf and peppercorns.

2. Dice the remaining onion and mince the garlic. Grate the pickles. Heat some margarine or oil in a pan and fry the onion until golden. Add the garlic and fry for a minute, then add the pickles and fry for a few minutes, until most of their liquid has evaporated. Add to the soup pot.

3. Peel and dice the potatoes. Add them to the pot and cook until soft. Mix in the soy milk and heat briefly. Remove the bay leaf and season with salt and pepper.

Beer Battered Onion Rings

These crunchy onion rings make a great accompaniment to burgers, for example my New Zealand Beer Battered 'Fish' Burgers. The batter for the tofu and onions is the same, so you can fry your tofu and then use up the rest of the batter on the onions. If you don't want to make burgers, you can probably get away with half a recipe of batter. I find it handy to dip the onions in the batter using chopsticks.

Beer Battered Onion Rings

Ingredients

120 ml vegetable oil
250 ml flour
250 ml beer
1 tsp salt
a dash of pepper
several onions - as many as you want rings

Method

1. Heat the oil over medium heat in a pan. Mix flour, beer, salt and pepper until smooth.

2. Peel the onions. Chop width-wise into rings, and separate the rings. I like to leave the middles whole and use those too - like doughnut holes.

3. Check if the oil is hot. Heat it for a few minutes more if it's not. Dip several rings in the batter, shake to remove excess batter, and add to the hot oil. Cook until brown on both sides, then drain on paper towels and salt. Fry remaining rings. Nom.