Minipies with button mushrooms and walnuts

I do not know whether there are people who do not like red borscht, but if they are, they are very sad people.

Borsch is absolutely perfect. You can drink it plain, with minipies. You can leave beets and add potatoes or beans. You can add a plethora of vegetables and have Ukrainian borscht. You can, finally, pickle beets and cook borscht on pickled beet juice.

Each one different. Each one delicious.

I had this craving for borscht for a few days, finally I gave in and cooked simple one, on beets only. I added a few tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, which disturbed color a little, but fantastically upped the taste. At the last minute I decided on this experiment, but I’m delighted with the result.

If you do not have pickled beets (or desire to wait for when it “come”), balsamic vinegar is the perfect solution.

But this I wanted some pies. And here there was a bit of a problem. Firstly, I could not buy a pastry (there was no vegan one in my favorite shop…), so the pies are yeast dough. Secondly, I decided to experiment and pies filling is “pate” with mushrooms and walnuts. In addition, I was feeling very poor and this whole thing took me a whole lot more time than it should.

But I did it and I’m extremely proud of myself.

Especially that the oven still does not work…

Enjoy these minipies. And borsch. Bon Appetit!

Ingredients:

Dough:

40 dag flour (wheat, spelt, a mixture of both)

25 g of fresh yeast (7g instant yeast)

1 cup warm water (200 ml)

0.5 teaspoons brown sugar

0.5 tsp salt

2 tablespoons olive oil

Filling:

0.5 kg of mushrooms

20 grams of walnuts

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon cumin (ground)

0.5 tsp turmeric

1 tsp black mustard seeds (ground)

1 teaspoon chili

salt

2 cloves garlic

1 teaspoon coriander seeds (ground)

1 teaspoon fresh ginger

1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

2 – 3 tablespoons of coconut oil (olive oil)

Preparation:

Filling:

• Clean the mushrooms and cut into quarters.
• In a bowl, combine spices (except garlic, ginger and vinegar), salt.
• Add the garlic, ginger and vinegar, mix until smooth.
• In a saucepan with a thick bottom warm up the oil.
• Add a blend of spices and reduce heat. Stir spices, frying until the oil is clearly separate from the spices.
• Add the mushrooms. Mix. You can add a teaspoon of salt.
• Fry the mushrooms until all the liquid evaporates.
• Take off the heat and cool it.
• Mushrooms and nuts translate into a blender and blend until smooth.

Dough:

• Yeast add into a bowl.
• Add the sugar, water and 2 tablespoons of flour. Stir, then leave for 15 minutes.
• Sift the flour into a bowl, add salt and leaven yeast.
• Knead a smooth dough.
• Add the liquid oil and knead the dough again, approx. 5 – 7 minutes.
• The dough does not need to rise.

Pies:

• Divide the dough into 4 parts. Each rool a long and narrow (approx. 10 cm) strip.
• On the lower half of the strip add filling and wrap the dough.
• Cut into 3 – 5 cm pieces.
• Repeat until you have filling.
• Pies bake 20 minutes in preheated oven at 200C (approx. 400F).

Serve with red borsch. Bon Appetit!