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Russian Fish Pie
I ONION, CHOPPED 3 TABLESPOONS BUTTER 4 MUSHROOMS, SLICED 1/2 POUNDS RAW FISH, DICED 2 HARD-COOKED EGGS, CHOPPED 1/2 TEASPOON ANISEED I TEASPOON MINCED PARSLEY SALT AND PEPPER I CUP FRESHLY COOKED CRACKED WHEAT SHORTCAKE DOUGH EGG WHITE MELTED BUTTER BREAD CRUMBS Slowly fry onions in butter. When it begins to color add mushrooms and fish. Fry 5-8 minutes, stirring several times. Cool somewhat, and add eggs, aniseed, parsley, seasonings and cereal. Roll out dough a little thinner than for shortcake, and trim to a neat rectangle. Arrange fish filling down the center. Bring up edges of dough to completely enclose the filling; brush edges with egg white and press together to seal. Turn upside down in buttered pan; thrust a knife through the center of pie to let out steam while baking. Brush with melted butter, sprinkle with crumbs, and bake.
A variation of this dish is made with paper-thin slices of smoked fish such as salmon or sturgeon, instead of raw fish, and the cereal may be cooked rice instead of wheat, enriched with a little sour cream. The real Russian pie dough is made of bread dough, raised with yeast, and then rolled out, spread with butter or fat, folded, rolled again, and this process repeated as for puff paste according to the whim of the cook.
This is a coulibiac in compact form: a fish-and-grain filling sealed in dough and baked. The original assumes you already know your oven, so the numbers below fill the gaps.
- Oven and timingNo temperature or time is given. Bake at 400F for roughly 35-45 minutes, until the crust is browned through and the centre reads 145F on a thermometer pushed in through the steam vent.
- The fish quantity is unclearThe amount of raw fish reads as half a pound in this text, which is too little for a cup of cracked wheat, two eggs and a full sheet of dough. A pie of this size wants about a pound and a half; treat the printed figure with suspicion and judge by the filling.
- Cracked wheatCoarse cracked wheat, cooked and drained until dry and fluffy; bulgur, which is parboiled, is a workable modern stand-in. Wet grain will steam the pastry from the inside and the base will not set.
- Shortcake doughA baking-powder biscuit dough, not sweetened cake batter. Roll it thinner than you would for shortcake, as directed, or the seam stays doughy where it overlaps.
- Cool the fillingThe instruction to cool it somewhat is the hinge. Hot filling melts the butter out of the dough before it reaches the oven and the parcel splits along the seal.
- Seam side downTurning the pie upside down in the pan puts the sealed edge underneath, where the weight of the filling holds it shut. Keep the steam vent on top.
- AniseedHalf a teaspoon of whole aniseed is assertive with white fish. Crush it lightly, or substitute fennel seed if you want the same direction with less licorice.
- Fish choiceAny firm fillet works: cod, haddock, halibut, salmon. Skin and pin-bone it before dicing, since bones are hard to find once the pie is closed.
- YieldOne rectangle of this size cuts into four generous portions or six modest ones. It slices more cleanly after ten minutes' rest.
This is a shortened version of kulebiaka (coulibiac in French), the Russian enclosed fish pie that entered restaurant cooking in western Europe in the nineteenth century, a transmission usually credited to French chefs who had worked in Russia. The grand form is built in layers with salmon or sturgeon, buckwheat or rice, mushrooms, hard-cooked egg and sometimes vesiga, the dried spinal marrow of sturgeon, all wrapped in brioche or puff pastry. The note at the end of this recipe, describing bread dough buttered, folded and rolled repeatedly, is a fair account of the traditional wrapper, a rough laminated yeast dough somewhere between bread and puff paste.