Piragi for Grandpa
Ann says
My Latvian family and traditions are very important to me, and give my life a lot of shape. In fact, I’m writing this sitting next to my Latvian grandmother, who is currently snoozing on the couch. We are very good at this activity. She used to be, however, a pretty good cook. She didn’t make new things and in all reality she was always a better baker than anything else, and when her stroke made her too confused to bake my grandpa took over. We have a great video of him making traditional sweet and sour dark rye bread. Made with a sour dough starter, lots of brown sugar, and dark rye, it’s delicious straight out of the oven with butter and honey on top. Or with pickled herring or smoked fish of any type. I love the stuff…
But that’s not my favorite recipe. In general I try to avoid pork for reasons of inhumane farming practices, but if I’m going to make piragi (PEE rah ghee) I hunt down some organic pork and make little rolls of goodness with more cholesterol in them than you should have in a month. They taste light, buttery, and full of bacon and sauteed onions. They are the perfect savory fix. They are their own version of the filled dough that is so popular in pretty much every eastern European country. Little baked yeast rolls instead of the large fried rolls of Russia or the filled noodles of Poland.
My grandfather’s recent death called for a huge batch of piragi to be made, and I was the only volunteer. My cousin Zinta made a Klingeris, and two tortes, so she was swamped, not to mention the huge pot of soup and other goodies she made for my family. With a little help from Abe I filled 160 piragi for my grandpa’s funeral. He was a wonderfully caring person and I think he would have approved. Here’s the recipe…
Latvian Piragi
Step 1: Filling
2 1/4 lbs. raw bacon, diced finely
2 1/4 cups onion, finely diced
pepper to taste, and caraway seeds to taste, if you have them on hand
Prepare one day ahead so that the fat solidifies and is easier to put into the dough. Saute the bacon and onion simultaneously with pepper and caraway until soft and fully cooked. Do not caramelize onions and do not make the bacon crunchy. You could pour off the fat, but I don’t. Stop looking at me like that.
Step 2: Dough Part I
2 1/4 cups whole milk
3 packages of yeast or about 3 tablespoons
1 handful of sugar
1 cup of flour
Warm the milk in a pan until it is warm but still cool enough to put your finger in and hold it there indefinitely. Pour the milk into a very large glass of ceramic bowl. Vigorously whisk in the yeast, then normally whisk in the sugar and flour. Allow this to rise for at least 5 minutes. It should be foamy by then. If it isn’t, your yeast is dead.
Step 3: Dough Part II
1 and 1/4 cups room temp butter
5 eggs
palmful of sea salt or kosher. NOT MORTON
Beat all this into the foamy yeast mixture from step 2 until incorporated.
Step 4: Lots of flour, or Dough Part III
Incorporate with a long wooden spoon about 3 and 1/2 to 4 cups of flour. Now, this is where it gets tricky. My grandma never knew how much flour she put in. Since I learned from her and other old Latvian ladies, I don’t know how much I put in either. So. What you should know is that the dough should be MUCH wetter than any roll dough you’ve ever made before. It will be sticky. It will not, however, be runny, so if after 4 cups it is runny, you should add some more flour. Work this in only until fully incorporated. This is not a kneaded yeast dough.
Allow to rise in a very warm place for about an hour and a half, or until doubled in size. I use an oven warmed to 170 degrees and then turned off. Kitchens and family rooms (often the family had just one room) in Latvia were very hot from the ever-running wood stove, so this is the time to utilize a hot day or a just-baked-in space.
Step 5: Make the Piragi
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Lay out a large board where you can sit down and work. Lightly dust the board with flour. Take about 1/4 of the dough and put it on the far end of the board from you. With you fingers nab about a walnut shell-sized piece of dough. Place the dough on the closed fingers of your non-dominant hand. Using your dominant thumb, press the dough out into a 3 inch oval. It should be thin. Mound 1 rounded teaspoon of the bacon/onion mixture in the middle and close the oval in half. Pinch together the seams very well, as they easily come apart when baking. Turn the package into a crescent shape and place on a parchment lined pan.
When the pan is full brush the tops with egg wash and put in the oven near the top. Bake 8-10 minutes. Brown under the broiler for 1 minute if necessary. Remove from oven and place onto a large, opened grocery bag. Repeat.
Yields about 80 piragi or more.
Just a variation to consider - my mom is Latvian and i grew up loving these things (we kids called them “PEE-dogs”!) - but I always had them with a variation that was begun by my mom’s brother when he was small - he told my grandmother that he thought he should have his WHOLE breakfast rolled into one - that being bacon AND eggs. So, my family recipe includes about even parts ham/bacon (if using bacon, cut some of the fattiest parts off first) and hard boiled eggs, plus maybe a little less than even amounts of onion. It is absolutely delicious and I suggest you try it!
My great aunt always adds mustard seeds to hers - but i prefer just the bacon, eggs, onion and a generous helping of salt and pepper to taste!
that sounds delicious. Will have to try it some time.
My Dad was Latvian and my Mom was German and they would always make them together. He would cut the bacon and onions, she would make the dough, then together they would work on shaping the piragi. I remember clearly, however, that they never sauteed the bacon and onions. They also seasoned them only with fresh ground pepper, since the bacon in Germany already had enough salt in it, I guess. Those things were heavenly and an absolute must when we had company. Piragi freeze very well and I remember that my parents always kept a few dozen of them “just in case”. Mom would heat the oven and put the frozen piragi directly on the rack in the oven and 12 to 15 minutes later she would offer freshly baked hot piragi to any guest. Piragi are best straight from the oven, I think.
Yeah, my grandma did the same thing keeping them in the freezer. We had them at every party growing up. I love them!
She actually cheated and usually used a little bit of ham along with the cheap pieces of smoked bacon fat the butcher had in the back and cooked the onions a little bit in that before after chopping it all up. I think every family has their own twist.
Thanks for sharing!
Both of my parents are from latvia, momma was born and raised in Riga, and she had 2 aunts on her dads side who lived in the country, and my dad was born near the estonian border.
we looked forward to Christmas when mom would make the little breads as we called them and daddy would make sous (?), mommma will be making little breads this wed, so does anyone know the sous recipe?
we have been in this c ountry since nov 1951
lol mine look better. but I must admit that I cheet and buy the dough. I love the addition of caraways seeds though. I will try it
Nice pic Ann! I would love if you and mom made some soon to enjoy when your over at the house some time!
Thanks for the recipe. My grandma and dad are from Latvia and I grew up on these. They are the best. My grandma gave me the recipe before she died but I lost it. She taught me once when I was in college so I’ll have give this recipe a try to see if things come back to me. I just remember it was an all day affair making these but well worth it.