Pampushky

Pampushky means puff, or so I've been told. They are really delicious Ukrainian doughnuts.

And they are filled with wonderful thick, thick plum jam or poppy seed. If you are making a poppy seed filling, make sure the poppy seeds are fresh. It's quite disappointing to go to all this effort and have the poppy seed be rancid. Trust me, I know.

Don't forget to scald the poppy seeds in boiling water, cover and let sit for one hour and then drain, before you grind them.

When you are forming the pampushky, it's kind of like making  perogies or turnovers. Put the filling in the middle of the circle of dough and make sure you are super careful not to get the filling on the edges. If you get a little of the filling on the edges, then when you go to seal them, they look ok, but when they go in the hot oil, all the filling comes out.

The first recipe below was in the Winter 2006 edition of Solovei magazine. Back then Sylvia Molnar provided the recipes. She's an amazing cook and cooking teacher.

The second recipe is a scan of an old typewritten family recipe from my cousin Natalie's grandma who was, as I recall, a very good cook. Her recipe calls for St. Lawrence oil - a brand that is no longer around - and is just good old fashioned corn oil.  Any vegetable/canola oil will do. 

The recipe also says to fill with a generous portion of filling, but neglects to mention what that would be. I like them filled with an extremely thick plum jam that I pick up at a European deli. My mom and dad used to make this jam and would cook it for 8 hours until a spoon could stand straight up in it.

A blast from the past - :

photo: Kagor at the Ukrainian language Wikipedia