Kyiv perepichka

Ingredients

Dough

• 500 gplain flour
• 7 gdried yeast
• 1 tablespoonsugar
• 1 teaspoonsalt
• 250 mlwarm water
• or warm milk
• 2 tablespoonsoil
• 1egg, optional

Sausage

• 10pork sausages
• a coarse smoked or boiled sausage
• or 10 frankfurters

To fry

• oil, for deep frying

Sometimes served with

• mustard
• ketchup
• raw onion
• eaten standing in the street

Directions

1. Seal every single edge carefully. It should already be cooked or smoked. Use a pre-cooked or smoked sausage. It should be soft and easy to stretch. Warm the water to blood temperature. Stir the yeast and the sugar into it. Let it stand until it foams up. Give it about ten minutes to foam. Put the flour and salt in a large bowl.
2. Make a well in the middle of it. Pour in the foaming yeast liquid. Add the oil to the well as well. Add the egg if you are using it. Bring it together into a soft dough. Turn it out onto a floured surface. Knead it for a good eight minutes. It should become smooth and elastic.
3. Put the dough in an oiled bowl. Cover it and leave it somewhere warm. Let it roughly double in size. Give it an hour or a little more. Take the sausages out of any casing wrapping. Pat every one of them completely dry. Divide it into even sized pieces. Roll each one into a smooth ball. Let them rest for ten minutes.
4. Flatten a ball into an oval by hand. Make it slightly longer than the sausage. Set the sausage in the middle of it. The dough should just enclose the sausage.
5. Bring the long edges up over the sausage. Pinch them firmly together shut. Roll it gently to smooth the seam. The seam should be underneath when frying. Set them seam side down on a tray. Cover them loosely with a cloth. Let them rest for fifteen minutes. Heating the oil takes attention.
6. Pour the oil into a deep heavy pot. Fill it no more than half full. Heat it to about one hundred and seventy degrees. It should rise and sizzle steadily. Keep a lid nearby to smother a flare-up. Never put water on an oil fire at all. Keep children well away from the pot. Frying them takes care and batches. Turn them over with a slotted spoon. Give them another three minutes.
7. Cut the first one open to check. The dough should be cooked right through. Lift them out onto a wire rack. A rack keeps them crisp underneath. Let all the excess oil drip away. Serving them is done immediately and hot.

Technique

• One small kiosk on a side street off Khreshchatyk has sold these since nineteen eighty-one, selling essentially one thing to a queue that forms at almost all opening hours; it opened in the Soviet period, continued through independence and kept trading through the full-scale invasion, a continuity widely remarked on in Kyiv.
• The sausage must already be cooked or smoked, since the dough browns in a few minutes and a raw sausage would be underdone inside a browned crust; it only needs heating through inside the parcel.
• Seal every edge completely and fry seam side down first, since any gap lets hot oil reach the sausage and spit violently, and lets the dough fill with oil; the seam sets first that way and is far less likely to open.

Substitutions

• Frankfurters stand in for a coarse pork sausage.
• Warm milk in place of water gives a slightly softer dough.

Variations

• Some versions add raw onion inside the dough with the sausage.
• Mustard and ketchup are both offered alongside.
• The kiosk serves them in a paper napkin to eat standing.

History

Sausage in fried dough sold from a single kiosk off Kyiv’s Khreshchatyk since 1981, with queues around the corner.

Frequently asked questions

What is Kyiv perepichka?

Kyiv perepichka is a street food from Ukraine: sausage sealed in fried dough, downtown Kyiv icon. Sausage in fried dough sold from a single kiosk off Kyiv’s Khreshchatyk since 1981, with queues around the corner.

How long does Kyiv perepichka take to make?

Kyiv perepichka takes 30 minutes plus rising of preparation and 20 minutes of cooking. The recipe makes about 10. It is rated medium to make.

What can I substitute in Kyiv perepichka?

Yes, within limits. Frankfurters stand in for a coarse pork sausage. Warm milk in place of water gives a slightly softer dough.

What is the most important thing to get right in Kyiv perepichka?

Pour the oil into a deep heavy pot. Fill it no more than half full. Heat it to about one hundred and seventy degrees. It should rise and sizzle steadily. Keep a lid nearby to smother a flare-up. Never put water on an oil fire at all. Keep children well away from the pot. Frying them takes care and batches. Turn them over with a slotted spoon. Give them another three minutes.