Pirozhki & Olivie Salad: Holiday leftover idea

  Family holiday dinners.  A time to feast on all of your favorite holiday foods  Theres the spiral honey baked ham,  ALL the potatoes, the gravy, and of course the prized turkey, brined, seasoned and cooked to absolute perfection (lets hope).  And then there is the day after The family Holiday dinner. Leftovers galore!  Once you have had enough turkey and/or ham sandwiches- and I hope you have at least one- what do you do with all of the yummy food?  Around here, leftover leftovers mean some classic dishes inspired from childhood eastern european favorites. These two recipes are so easy, oh so yummy and you will probably have all of the ingredients left on your fridge from your holiday feast.  

Eastern European recipes are usually made with pretty simple ingredients and Have a rustic charm to them.  They are hearty and comforting.  Piroshki and Olivie are two common and tradition Eastern European dishes.  Piroshki is a small individual-sized meat pie/roll, usually baked or fried, and stuffed with a variety of fillings.  Fillings may include, potatoes (so yummy! Try this one if you have the ingredients. Leftover mashed potatoes, cooked onion and some dill👍) , mushrooms, cabbage or meat fillings such as ground poultry or ground beef.  You can make your own dough for piroshki but I have decided to skip this step and use raw pizza dough, because it fries well, tastes great, and saves some time (and Lord knows, a Mamachka's time is gold).  Olivie is very similar to a cross between an American potatoes salad and chicken salad.  Piroshki and Olivie are a favorite in my house.  My husband requests Olivie salad on the weekly menu!  

Warning that this is definitely a recipe to continue your holiday carb overload.  It's kind of go big or go home, during the holidays anyway, right?  Enjoy!

Turkey & Cabbage Pirozhki (you can make these fillings together or alone)

serves: 10 large piroshki 

Ingredients:

• 2 bags of plain pizza dough from Trader Joes
• White flour to roll out dough
• a little bit of extra water to help seal dough together to form a pie
• 2 cups of canola oil and cast iron skillet for frying OR Deep fryer

TURKEY FILLING

• 1 cups of roasted turkey leftovers ( you can also make the turkey fresh with 2lbs of cooked ground turkey or meat of your choice)
• 1/4 cup just mayo from Hampton Creek
•  1 cup finely diced cooked onion 
• 1 tablespoon of garlic powder
• salt & pepper to taste

CABBAGE FILLING

• 1 shredded cabbage 
• 2 tbsp ketchup
• 1 tbsp of white vinegar 
• 1/4 cup of water
• 2 tbsp oil for pan
• Salt & pepper to taste

Step 1

Set burner to medium flame for the cabbage.  Add oil, water, and vinegar to pan along with cabbage. cover with lid and cook for 15 minutes stirring occasionally.  Add ketchup to cabbage and stir.  Cook for an additional 15 minutes or until cabbage is soft and brown.

At the same time, use different burner to brown the onion.  Coat bottom of pan with oil and throw in finely diced onion.  continue to stir and cook until onion is an unmistakable gold brown.

Step 2

While cabbage is cooking, prepare turkey.  Ground the turkey leftovers finely in a food processor or vitamix.  Once ground stir in mayo, onion, garlic.  Add salt & pepper to taste.

Step 3:  Fill pies

NOTE: dough rises as it sits out due to the yeast so work quickly here

Dust dough with flour.  Roll out and use 4"  juice glass to create small dough circles.  Roll out circles into 5x5 inch circles (these do not have to be perfect and are challenging to roll out so don't worry if they end up looking like rectangles).

Step 3:

Fill each flattened dough with  2 tablespoon of turkey OR cabbage. You can also make cabbage & turkey mixed piroshki with 1 tbsp of turkey and 1 tbsp of cabbage per pie.

Step 4

To seal pastry, use water to wet one side of the edge of the dough and then pinch edges together.  Roll pie in flour and repeat again until all dough and fillings have been used.

Step 5

Deep fry pies using cast iron skillet and oil or deep fryer.  Remove when all sides are golden brown.

Tip:   These are traditionally eaten with sour cream as a dipping sauce.  If you can eat dairy I highly recommend it! If you don't, try to use leftover holiday cranberry sauce with the turkey pirozhki for a real holiday leftover style treat.

Olivie Salad

serves: 6-8

Ingredients 

• 4 firm boiled russet potatoes
• 3 soft boiled carrots
• 1 cup of green peas (optional)
• 4 dill pickles & 2 tbsp pickle juice
• 1/2 cup just mayo
• 1 cup of shredded turkey breast (you can substitute shredded chicken)
• 1 cup of small cubed ham 
• salt and pepper to taste

Cube carrots, potatoes, dill pickles and mix all ingredients together.  Add more mayo if you want.

I hope you enjoy these Russian comfort foods and that you find these recipes to be a great way to use the rest of your holiday leftovers.  Happy Holidays to you! 

Love, 

Sofia