Uszka (Polish dumplings filled with mushrooms)

I hope that you have all spent a lovely christmas with your families, or if you don't celebrate christmas or celebrate something else, I hope that you have had a lovely week either way :) Fortunately, I got to spend christmas with my mum and my sister, we were supposed to drive to Poland to see my granddad but unfortunately our car broke down. This meant that I had the wonderful task of cooking 12 courses at home (it's a tradition that you have to have at least as many dishes as the number of apostles), and in my family, Barszcz (a beetroot soup, very well known in Central and Eastern Europe that I bought this year (I had nearly no time to prepare!) with "Uszka" are always the first dish. Uszka are small dumplings filled with mushrooms, kind of like Pierogi but smaller and in a different shape. They are incredibly tasty nevertheless :) I'm not sure how much more from the christmas recipes I will post on here since many of them are quite particular and I think ingredients could be quite hard to buy at some places but I'll definitely post Christmas Pierogi and 2 desserts from our meal.

 

Ingredients for 50 "uszka"

500 g of flour (technically it should be "Maka tortowa", I used regular flour and the dough wasn't as stretchy but manageable)
1 egg
a bit of hot water
25 g of dried mushrooms (special type of mushrooms, apparently called "boletus" in English or "porcini")
500 g of mushrooms
2 onions
butter
salt and pepper

Start off by making the dough for the uszka: sift your flour onto your work surface and make a small mould in the middle. Crack the egg into the middle and start combining the flour and the egg. Add hot water (make sure you don't burn your fingers! I add a bit of water, let it cool and then work the dough) until you can form a dough ball that won't stick to your hands anymore.

Roll the dough out thinly, basically as thin as you can to about 2mm. Cut out circles with a glass:

Then proceed to make your filling. Dice the mushrooms and onions into small pieces, as well as the dried mushrooms. Cook the dried mushrooms in a bit of hot water (don't throw away the water, but add into the mixture afterwards) Heat a knob of butter in a frying pan and add the onions first. Once they're sautéed, add in the mushrooms. Cook until they are very soft, then season with salt and pepper. Leave to cool for a bit.

Spread out your dough circles and place a tablespoon (or a little less) of the filling onto each one.

 Then fold one half over and press down firmly.

Make sure it's all nicely sealed and then press together the ends so that you get the typical "Uszka" shape:

Cook them in salted water for about 3 minutes, or until they come up to the surface. Serve with Barszcz. Enjoy :)