Tortellini, also known as “Pelmeni” in Russian and “Chuchvara” in Uzbek, is an amazingly delicious dish. I love two types of tortellini: one filled with meat and the other type filled with different greens and herbs. They are fairly easy to make. Once you get used to rolling the dough, you can easily make them every other day :) I make them at least once a week, because my two boys are in love with them.
You can find Tortellinis in many kitchens like Italian, Tatar, Uzbek, Kazakh, Uighur, Russian, Ukrainian and Turkish under different names. Although each version slightly differs from one another, the basic concept remains the same. The reason why I prefer the Uzbek way of making Tortellini (Chuchvara) is because the dough is softer, thinner, easier for digestion and tastier :)
Chuchvara a.k.a. Tortellini can be served in a soup or plain dry, topped with sour cream and tomato sauce.
Yield: 4 serving
Ingredients for the dough:
- 2 cups of all purpose flour
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp salt
- 3/4 cup warm water
Ingredients for the meat filling:
- 1/2 lb minced/ground beef (80% lean)
- 1 large onion
- 1/2 tsp ground cumin
- 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
- 1/2 tsp salt (alter the salt according to your own taste. Be advised that too little salt will affect the final result)
Directions for the dough:
In a medium bowl mix together the dry ingredients. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour the warm water and crack 1 egg:
If you have a standing mixer or a machine to make the dough, utilize it. If you do not, just mix everything well and knead the dough for 5-6 minutes. Kneading the dough well is important. The longer and better you knead, the easier it will be to roll the dough later. Cover the ready dough with a plastic wrap or a bowl. Let it rest for 10-20 minutes, depending on how soft or hard you made the dough. The ideal dough should be not too soft or too hard to work with.
Preparing the meat filling:
Chop or grind the onion. In a small bowl mix ready onion, beef and the spices. Mix everything extremely well by hand, making sure the ingredients are well-incorporated. Place into the refrigerator until further use.
When the dough is well-rested, start getting it ready to be rolled. I have a smaller rolling pin. In order to have a nice, thin tortellini wraps, I cut the dough in two and roll them separately. Wrap the unused part until further use. The part that you are going be working on, needs to be flattened with your fingers and knuckles. Use flour as much as needed to prevent the dough from sticking. If you have a dough maker/presser, you can also use it. Roll a thin dough measuring 1-2 mm in thickness.
Fold the dough and make 2 inch-wide cuts with your knife. Now you should have separate ribbons. It might take a little longer to fold the tortellini if you are trying to do so for the first time. You need to make sure that the dough is not sticky (or way too soft that the layers may stick together). If you think that’s the case, sprinkle some flour between the layers to prevent them from sticking.
Put ribbons one on top of another evenly, one by one, and cut the dough leaving 2 inches between every cut.
Prepare a cookie sheet with a towel on top. Ready tortellini will be placed on top of the towel. This way, tortellini will not stick on the bottom of the sheet and will be easier to remove later. Also, remember to keep the dough under another towel to prevent from drying out.
Place a bigger than pea-size filling in the middle of each cubed dough. Fold the dough in two and slightly pinching the folded corners, connect and stick them together.
Voila!
If you are enjoying tortellini just plain, boil some water (approx. 4 cups) add 1/2 TBSP of salt and drop the tortellini. At first, they will sink to the bottom, in a minute or less they will rise to the surface. Once they do, stir them gently with a spoon a couple of times and turn the heat down to medium-low. Cook for 15 minutes and serve!
These freeze well, too. If you have excess tortellini or want to make extra for some occasion, put the tortellini into the freezer together with the cookie sheet. 30 minutes later, take the cookie sheet out, empty tortellini in a zip-lock bag and stick the bag back into the freezer. When needed, take the bag out and dump the tortellini/> into the boiling water. There is no need to defrost them. It will just take a little longer to cook.
Enjoy!
This looks very tasty, I’ll be trying this out very soon! =D
Thank you!
Absolutely try it! :) Men cook well, I am sure you can rock the kitchen :P Let me know if you need any help or suggestions.
Wow, they came out so perfectly uniform! I love making tortellini and these are really great and thorough instructions.
Thank you Kristin! I checked out your blog and read it a lot of the articles till 1 AM :) I like it a lot!!! Keep up the good work :D
These tortellini (already plural without the “s”) are perfect!!!! Wow! Thank you so much for the process photos. I didn’t know tortellini were so easy to make.
Memoria, oh thaaank you for the correction :P English is my second language. I tend to make mistakes sometimes. Def. try them out. They are very elegant looking in the soups, too.
OMG ! you make them the uzbekian way… russian Wink circle with a cup… (waist of dough)my fother is the one that maks the dough in the house for pilmeny the way u do…and than the family gathering together and we making the shape… (mini family facture) and than we have pilmeny supply in the frizer for more :)
Jenny, jenny how right you are :) I think the Uzbek way of folding pelmeni is just very practical and faster than its Russian counterpart. Something tells me your family is originally from Central Asian region :) The world tends to get sooo small at time :D Again, extend my regards to your greater family and thank you for visiting my blog.
ohhh thanks! i’m touched!!my father is from uzbekistan amd my mother is from Belarus and i grew up in Georgia…and i live in Israel so believe me there is no dull plate on hour table :) well yeah USSR was big but now we have great food hah? i would like to share some Georgian recepies that my mother has…delicious!
Some people (i.e. in Samarkand and Bukhara) also call it “barak”. It’s one of my favorite meal (the one that filled with meat, of course:) as well as “palov” (“osh”). Thanks for sharing the recipe and great photos. Keep it up!
Thank you for visiting our blog, Asrorbek! I hope the recipes will be some of help to you.
Speaking of osh, do you have an osh recipe that you can post on your blog? That would be wonderful!
Dear Sarah, here is one recipe that might interest you: http://lola-elise.com/recipes/uzbek-palov-osh-recipe
Great job!!! Looks Yummyyyyyy!!
Thank you :)
I love pelmini! I usually make them at home, Russian style I guess since they are circular. I’m intrigued by your addition of cumin and will definitely try this next time.
Ahava, sorry that I am getting a little back to you :( I promise, I will not slack again!
Thank you for vising my blog!! I hope you like the addition of the cumin :) The reason why I like to actually make a big dough and cut in small cubes is, the dough gets very thin. Much easier to digest and a fun meal for little tikes :)
Let me know how they turn out!! :)
Thank you! Both instructions and pictures are PERFECT!
Thank you, Feruzahon!! :) Let me know if you need other recipes. I may be missing something. Would love to get some feedback! :)
Tol’ko ne “Feruzahon”! Please!:) A esli seryozno, to vi/ti (?) prosto umnica! Vo mne pryamo prosnulas’ posle dolgogo letargicheskogo sna-uzbekskaya hozyayka,posle prosmotra tvoih receptov+zamechatel’nih fotografiy processa.
Segodnya poprobuyu sdelat’ Hachapuri a la Lola M. obyazatel’no soobshu kak poluchilos’! Yesho raz spasibo!Ti-molodchina!
I would love to see the ingredients for the herb and greens filling….
Will do :D
Did you ever get the ingredients for the herb filling of the tortollini? We’ve eaten at an authentic Italian restaurant (Italian Village in Chicago) many years ago & enjoyed the best meat & herb tortollini filling ever.
Now they use cheese filling & don’t have the recipe for the good stuff anymore. I’ve tried garlic and rosemary with veal & a touch of liverworst but it’s still not there. If you have any other ideas please
email me (Elaine) at [email protected]. Please let me know if you got this. Thanks!
All I got to say is WOW!!! you are amazing! I have been searching for a blog that has Uzbek recipes in English with good pictures and instructions, and I do not need to look any further! My parents are both Russian but we lived in Tashkent until I was about 6 and then immigrated to the US. I LOVE LOVE LOVE Uzbek food! Cant wait to try out all these Amazing recipes!
i like this food becuse it,s greated one and i want to have another one by my Email adress thank u
I lived in Andijan for 5 years and miss these so much – I’m going to try to make them soon. Rakhmat!
Would you suggest cooking them before or after freezing? I’d love to have these ready for recipes and want to make sure I’m doing it properly.