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Chicken Mushroom Pirozhki

2020-04-30

These are perhaps my favorite food of all time -- I loved making and eating them as a child and I still do! Pirozhki (or пирожки) are quite stereotypical of Russian culture and are traditionally boat-shaped buns with different fillings. Another popular filling is with cabbage or beef, but I have always loved the chicken filling the most.

This recipe is my grandma’s and we’ve been making these pirozhki for years. Traditionally, pirozhki are made with a more chewy yeast-based dough, but I especially love the flaky puff pastry dough we use. They’re crunchy and are packed with flavors of home.

We also make them relatively small -- snack size! I think they’re super cute. I can eat like 10 of them at once and still want more. Pirozhki are normally made a bit larger.

But if you want to make these larger, you could probably use an entire puff pastry square for one pirozhok (singular for pirozhki!) instead of cutting it into four squares like we do. We’ve never made them this way and you would probably have to cook them for longer, but give it a try!

Another essential thing for this recipe is owning a meat grinder. It’s pretty hard to make Russian dishes without one anyway. In this case, we grind cooked chicken and mushrooms together to make the filling. It’s maybe possible to accomplish this without a meat grinder, but you’d have to get creative (chop really small? mash everything together?).

If you have a meat grinder attachment to your stand mixer, that is perfect. Whichever way you do it, make sure that you’re filling your pirozhki with COOKED meat. They will not do well if you fill them with raw meat and expect it to cook through in the oven and taste the same. Plus they might come out wet from the raw meat emitting moisture.

As a side note, I love eating these cold the second day but I’m kind of weird, so your best bet is probably to warm them up in the toaster to reheat, since the microwave will make them soft and soggy. I don’t need to tell you that the best time to eat them is fresh, right out of the oven though.

We hope you enjoy making and eating these as much as we do! :)

Serving Size: 32 buns
Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients
  • 1 whole rotisserie chicken
  • 1 large brown onion, diced
  • 8 oz. mushrooms, sliced
  • 8 squares (5”x5”) puff pastry dough (or about 18 oz.)
  • 1 egg
  • Sea salt, to taste
  • Ground black pepper, to taste
Instructions
  1. 1. Separate the meat from the bones of the rotisserie chicken. It is important to use both the white and dark meat, especially because the dark meat adds moisture so that the filling doesn’t turn out too dry. Place the chicken in a large bowl and set aside.
  2. 2. Sauté the mushroom and onion in a skillet until browned and starts to give off excess moisture. Add the mushroom and onion mixture to the bowl with the chicken.
  3. 3. To make the filling, grind the meat and mushroom mixture together using a meat grinder. Add salt and pepper to taste.
  4. 4. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cut each individual puff pastry sheet into 4 squares. Do not use a roller on the dough as it could flatten the layers and the dough could turn out less flaky.
  5. 5. Place about a teaspoon of filling into each square of dough. Use flour if necessary to prevent stickiness.
  6. 6. Pinch together opposite corners of the dough and continue along the edges to close the pastry.
  7. 7. Place on a baking tray and beat an egg. With a pastry brush, spread some egg wash over the pastries so that they get a nice color and shine when they bake.
  8. 8. Bake the pastries for about 30 minutes or until they develop a crunch and a rich golden color.
  9. 9. Let cool slightly and serve! They can be stored in the fridge for about a week and half, but you might eat them all before then!
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