Kibinai is a traditional lithuanian pastry. Thanks Agi for the delicious introduction.

This recipe is not fully there yet. The base is solid, but the ratio of dough to filling as well as the size of the Kibinai will be changed in future attemps for a better outcome.

Ingredients

v2

Dough:

• 400g flour
• 200g soft butter (not melted!)
• 160g sour cream
• 1 egg
• 10g salt
• 1 egg (for brushing, not in the dough)

Filling:

• 1kg minced beef
• two onions
• 2tbsp parsley
• 12g salt
• 90g sour cream

v1

Dough:

• 350g flour
• 200g soft butter (not melted!)
• 160g sour cream
• 1 egg
• 1 egg (for brushing, not in the dough)

Filling:

• 400g minced meat
• one onion
• some parsley
• salt and pepper to taste
• 90g sour cream

Instructions

Mix the dough ingredients and place it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes (better an hour).

Near the end of the rest time start to mix the filling. Get the dough out of the fridge, split it into ca. 16 parts and form little dough balls. Let them sit covered with a humid kitchen towel.

Start flattening the doughlings per hand in a bit of flour. Then use a rolling pin to flatten it out more. Ensure that the dough does not stick to the surface by dusting it on both sides if necessary. The dough should be pretty thin and roughly a circle

In the first try the dough was way too thick. You should get as thin as you can without ripping the dough during filling.

Add filling in the middle of the dough. I used roughly double the amount of filling as dough, though that might vary if you make smaller ones. Grab two sides and flap them up and press them together. Seal the dough with your fingres around the filling by pressing it together. If required you can use some egg as glue.

Preheat the oven to 180 degree. Before placing them in the oven brush them with egg. Let them bake for 20-30 minutes depending on the sizes. If the dough gets brown too early, cover them with a sheet of baking paper for the second half of the bake.

Next Time…

• roll the dough out more thinly. Thick dough really is not great here. done, updated recipe
• double the filling done, updated recipe
• increase the amount of Kibinai rather than make them bigger.

Testing

Vegetarian filling:

• 2 cans of chickpeas
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbsp parsley
• bit of cinnamon
• 50g of bread crumbs

This version was not that great. Two eggs just were too much, the filling was too liquid do use so I added bread crumbs. The result however was pretty dry. Maybe one egg and no bread crumb would be the better option. I squashed the chickpeas with my hands before mixing in the othe ingredients. That part worked pretty nicely as the mass was sticky but still had some texture to it (rather than blending it).

Next time try to add some cumin and some acidity to it (lemon, tomatoes,..). Remove the bread crumbs if possible. Reduce the bake to 15-20 minutes.