pirodzini

[dragonlady7]

Z is the best boyfriend ever.


So work today was the sort of good that's really bad, or vice versa. I got my ass thoroughly kicked up and down the back of the bar, and it was painful. I was in so much pain. I just wanted a big old glass of vodka, but I didn't drink any, so I am good. Anyway. I made $130ish in cash and over $100 in credit, so it's safe to say it was a busy day. But I had to count my bank about eight times and only avoided severe disciplinary consequences because of my bank being off by the grace of the cash girl, who flat out told me what my total ought to be.

So anyhow. I finally staggered out at 9:00 (I started at 11:30), beat up as hell, and there was Z to pick me up. "I bought you a present," he said.
He also had replaced the doorknob on the kitchen door, which sticks and has to be slammed shut. Not anymore! Shiny new doorknob.

So I got home and he had made me pirodzini, which are a Latvian thing his gram used to make. They're like little tiny meat-pies, sorta-- palm-size dough things filled with ham and onions and then baked. He also then made potato pancakes.
And the present he'd bought me?
A 64-oz growler of Flying Bison's Dawn Patrol. (Beer.)
And a gallon of preservative-free apple cider.

Boy is the best.

I'm absolutely stuffed on pirodzi and I've barely started on the potato pancakes.

I would share the recipes but I think both are family secrets on his mother's side.

Comments

[tehta.livejournal.com]

Hah. I have recipes for potato pancakes and pierogi (our version, more ravioli-ish) too. They're way too simple to be family secrets, though.


Thank Z for the info on R-trees. I did not know about them either, and that stuff is interesting to me too, as it's very similar to some nonparametric learning methods.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Oo, I'd love to hear about pierogi.
Pirodzini, while they sound like pierogi, and I thought were the same thing, are not. They are more bun-like, and are baked, and have leavened dough. (Z's mom cheats and uses premade pizza dough from the grocery store.) They are "beer food", and are apparently intended for snacking. The ones Z made were palm-sized, but he explained that his grandmother made much smaller, thinner ones-- it's just that when she made them, they were the size of his hands, and his hands are much bigger now. (He was still a small child when his grandmother died.)
They're identifiably of the same family, I suppose, in that they are a filling encased in dough, but the filling is tiny chunks of ham and onions, sauteed, rather than the cheese or potato or sauerkraut fillings I'm used to in pierogi-- a rather dry filling, really, and the dough is firmer. The tops are brushed with egg so they're shiny and golden-brown.
(That's pretty much the recipe right there, actually-- the recipe we got was translated with much laughter across the kitchen table by Z's mom from her Latvian cookbook, and the first ingredient translates to "smoked pig meat", and all the measurements are metric. The cookbook, by the way, was (besides being in Latvian) of the infuriating sort that gives ingredient quantities with descriptions like "not much" or "a bit". Kind of like my mom, who can be more readily excused because she wrote the recipes for me knowing I'd watched her make them, which at least demonstrates a touching faith in my powers of observation.)

My only comment on the potato pancakes is that I feel they ought to be cooked longer-- does your recipe have suggestions on that? (I wouldn't know, as my (14th-generation American protestant) mom's recipe for potato pancakes uses leftover mashed potatoes as a starting base and contains no onions. Even she knows it's not for real.)


I'm still not sure what an R-tree is despite his having explained it in wild gestures with socks in his hands-- he always picks the worst times, when I am the most distracted, to explain these things. But I rest assured that they are very cool, and I'm glad he has shared this knowledge with someone who actually understands it on the first try.