Recipe works "as is"! Blinis have a vary prominent place in Russian history. The day before lent is called maslenitsa. On this day all of the village women would prepare giant stacks of very thin blini brushed with plenty of butter between each to keep them from sticking together. This, being a feast day, was accompanied by both sweet and salty foods for wrapping into each blini by hand (like a buffet table with all sorts of stuff to put in them, yum, yum! The various condiments included jams, sour cream, pickled fish, salted preserved fish, fish in oil (sardins), various meats aso prepared in numerous ways, and plenty of kvas to drink.

This is quite an old, "traditional" Russian food. "Pirogi" simply means "pie." If you make a regular pie, this is the word you should use. Pirogi are usually baked. "Pirozhki" is a diminutive word for "pirogi" and means "little pie" or can even be equated with the word for a "turnover." These can be baked or fried. "Vareniki," usually refers to a type of a dumpling or the preparation of "pirozhki" by boiling. Russian vareniki are boiled and then, sometimes after that, are also quickly fried in butter so tat they don't stick together as much.

Whenever I ate pirozhki at the delis in SanFrancisco, they were mostly deep fried. However, with times getting more "healthier," baking seems to be a good way to cut down on the fat as well as the calories. I ask you, though, "Why spare anything with something so tried and true for quite some time?? I deep-fry mine without shame AND I have PLENTY of sour cream to dip or to spoon onto them (in more polite company that I would never serve this anyway!). My guest and I sit about and eat ALL we want and just ENJOY the wonderful flavor. Usually, I serve a nice beet borshch along with the pirozhkis and, again, there is plenty of sour cream to add to the borshch as well. I only make these a few times a year and, like bliny, we just stuff ourselves to the gills and have a lot of fun for the afternoon and evening, taking our time and slowly but surely depleting the complete supply among 6-8 of us (of course, there is the vodka and the music of the bards as well). As they say in Russian, "Tikho yedish, dalshe budesh." (Slowly, but surely.) Now why the 3 stars? There is no dill in the meat stuffing! No dill, no REAL pirozhki!!

I only gave this a four because of a personal preference. Dill is definitely the "taste" needed for true pirozhki. I learned this over 40 years ago from a Russian emigre woman and I miss them so much! Also, you may want to try to add 2-4 boied eggs to the stuffing. You may use a Moulle grinder so that you can shred the eggs into a "fine" grade such that the eggs aren't as visible to those who eat pirozhki made this way.