I have a bit of an obsession with filled dumplings – I blame the delicious cheese zombies of my youth. In the middle schools and high schools of the Bay Area, kids are raised on hot, buttery rolls filled with melted Velveeta – my mouth waters just thinking about them. Next time I’m home I’ll have to bribe my mom to whip some up. Mmm, zombies. Must. Eat. Brains. Or. Cheese. Filled. Bread.
The healthier substitution to fulfill my zombie cravings are bierocks (recipe adapted from Cooking Light). They are meat-filled dumplings filled with peppery cabbage and turkey – easy (and very affordable) to make, they freeze perfectly and are a great comfort food. I always make a big batch so we’ll have lots of easy, grab-on-the-way-out-the-door lunches in the freezer.
Bierocks (makes 24 dumplings)
For the dough:
1/2 cup sugar
4 1/2 tsp yeast (2 envelopes)
1 cup warm water
1 cup milk (I only had soymilk this time and it worked great)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 tsp salt
4 eggs, lightly beaten
~7 1/2 cups flour (white whole wheat if you’ve got it)
For the filling:
1 small onion, diced (1/2 cup)
1 lb ground turkey
1/2 small head of green cabbage, finely shredded (about 4c)
1 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp salt
First, prepare the dough – dissolve the yeast and sugar in the warm water and let stand until it starts to bubble a little. Add the milk, oil, salt and eggs and mix well. Add 6 1/2 cups flour and stir it in until a dough forms. It will be a little sticky, but turn it out onto your floured surface and knead it until it’s smooth and elastic. Add more flour by the Tbsp as necessary – I usually get to around 7 cups to make a nice moist dough, not sticky but not dry. Place the dough in a large bowl and cover. Let the dough rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.
While you’re waiting for that, cook the turkey and onion in a large nonstick pan until the turkey is browned. Add the cabbage and cook until it’s wilted, about 8 minutes. Add the salt and pepper and remove from heat. Chill this mixture until you’re ready to assemble the dumplings.
Your dough will make about 24 dumplings, so start by dividing the dough in quarters. Cut each quarter into 6 equal pieces, then roll each piece out to a circle about 5-inches in diameter. Add about 1/4 cup of your turkey filling to the center of each dumpling, then pinch the circle together. If you end up with extra dough, just form it into rolls and bake them off for dinner.
Place your bierocks (seam side down) on ungreased baking sheets about 2″ apart, cover and let rise 20 minutes in a warm place (now would be a good time to preheat the oven to 375°).
Bake for 14 minutes, or until golden brown and screaming at you to dig right in.
YUM! Didn’t think I was going to make it to the end of this post without grabbing one of these out of the fridge and nuking it for breakfast – oh well. They’re great – the pepper gives them a little bite to balance out the sweet dough, and if I can keep my hands off of them, we’ll have lunches for weeks to come.
Inside pic courtesy of Cooking Light (my dough was softer than this – I adapted their recipe to have less flour, so you can choose which pic is most appealing!):
I’ll have to give these a try. I admit, I’d like to have the classic cheese zombie recipe, though. Little pockets of warm cheesy goodness…
Yeah those look MUCH better than beet risotto. YUMMM.
Mom’s coming in to meet up for lunch tomorrow. Apparently she’s been baking so much today that she now has too many goodies to bring into my office she can’t take BART. Zombie’s will be part of that equation, I’m sure…
Aw, man! Not helping with the zombie craving. Mom, want to hook me up with the recipe?
Um I am a little disappointed you didn’t cut one open to show the goodness inside….But then again I may have resorted to eating my monitor so you saved me there.
Yes I too wanted to see the inside…sounds way better than beets. Hey guys thank you all for Conor’s Amazon birthday gift – I hope he emailed all of you….but I am not holding my breath! 🙂 We made the Persain spinish and prune sause with rice the other night – will send you the recipe to try – it’s fab! xoxoxo
Okay okay, I’ll update with a picture…
My mother-in-law makes bierocks and they are so good! It is a old German food and my father-in-law is 100% German.
Maria
Mmmm, those look amazing! I’ll definitely give them a try. Lovely blog.
Maria, I never connected that – I’ve got a lot of German in me, so maybe that’s why I love them!
Kate, thanks! Let me know how you like them.
[…] freezer is stocked full of bierocks, I’ve got spring rolls all prepped and ready to assemble this afternoon, and whipped up a pan […]