A pie is a small baked or fried dough product with a filling. Such a dish has been baked in Russia for a long time, and even today it is also popular, despite its calorie content. Pies differ not only in dough and filling, but also in their shape.
What shape can pies be made
For yeast dough pies, a round or oval shape is more suitable. The first one is the easiest to do - to do this, roll the dough into a not too thin sausage and divide it into equal balls. Flatten each one with your palm to make a cake. Place the filling in the middle, and then gather the edges of the cake towards the center, folding the cake like a bag. Then flatten the knot created on top of the pie with your palm a little so that it does not stick out.
To make an oval shape, place the filling also on the center of the cake, then connect its opposite edges in the center so that you have a kind of seam in the middle of the cake. You can put such pies on a baking sheet either seam up or on it.
It is better to make pies for frying in the form of dumplings - for this, you need to take the cake in your hands, then put the filling in it, and then pinch two opposite edges so that the seam is on one side.
Puff pastry patties can be made in the shape of a square or triangle. To make square patties, roll out the dough into a layer 5-8 mm thick and cut it into squares of the same size. Then place the filling in the center of each and fold the edges to form an envelope. Pinch the seams created as a result of such manipulations. To make triangular patties, place the filling inside the square, then simply join the two opposite edges and pinch.
Fry the finished pies in vegetable oil in a frying pan or place on a baking sheet greased with vegetable oil and bake in the oven. In the latter case, you can first grease them with a beaten egg - then the crust will turn out to be more ruddy. And ready-made sweet pies can be sprinkled with powdered sugar, but this should be done while they are still hot.
Various fillings for pies
For the preparation of sweet pies, you can use cottage cheese, jam, jam, nuts, sliced fruits or berries with granulated sugar. And so that during cooking the juice from the berries does not flow out, the dough can be sprinkled with a small amount of delicate corn starch.
Unsweetened pies can be prepared with chopped eggs and green onions, cheese and herbs, minced meat, chopped chicken, mushrooms, potatoes, peas, or cabbage. True, all of the listed products, except for herbs and cheese, must be subjected to preliminary heat treatment.
