Vareniki ... If at least once you had happinesstry this amazing dish, then you can rank yourself in the clan of initiates. Devoted to the secrets of simple and delicious food, as well as to the mystery of the multinationality of certain dishes. By the way, this phenomenon can not be explained clearly by historians of cookery, ethnologists, or sociologists. Why in some form or another dumplings are present in almost all the cuisines of the world? What makes peoples of different continents and cultures keep these recipes unchanged for thousands of years? Why, regardless of the filling, hiding inside a piece of boiled dough, no one will ever mix dumplings with any other dish? By the way, about the filling ... Fillings for vareniki are so different, and the number of them is so great that it is possible to write a real scientific treatise on this subject. After all, how many peoples, how many localities, how many traditions, so many varieties of filling for this truly national dish. Vareniki are made sweet and salty, hot and sour, fresh and spicy. And they are served ... With what they do not serve: with sour cream and yogurt, with sugar syrup and honey, with mustard and with ketchup, with mayonnaise and with jam. In short, all the fillings can not be counted. But still the most traditional and most interesting, we will find out. So, let's begin. 
Cottage cheese stuffing
One of the most traditional fillings for dumplings. Especially popular is the filling of the eastern and western Slavs. Vareniki with cottage cheese can be salty or sweet, they can be filled only with cottage cheese or include additional ingredients. The main component of such a filling is cottage cheese. It is best to cook them with a high-fat, high-fat, cottage cheese. Cottage cheese is simply mixed with egg or with egg yolk, add sugar and salt to taste, and then stuff them with vareniki. If the cottage cheese is dry and low-fat, then you can add a little butter or a spoonful of a very thick sour cream to the filling. In the sweet curd filling for dumplings add raisins, dried apricots, pieces of canned or fresh fruit and berries - to whom you like. And served with vareniki with sweet stuffing from cottage cheese sour cream, curdled milk, honey, liquid jam (it is very tasty - with cherry and raspberry). They can simply be poured with melted butter and sprinkled with sugar. Salty stuffing from cottage cheese is cooked the same way as sweet. The exception is sugar. However, some culinary experts advise adding just a tiny bit of sugar to this filling to enhance the taste. Very often salty curd filling for dumplings is supplemented with fresh spicy herbs (parsley, dill, basil). Some lovers put in garlic garlic, mustard or hot pepper. Serve vareniki with salted curd, preferably with sour cream or with butter. 
Potato filling
The second most popular ingredient in the filling fortraditional vareniki - potatoes. Potato stuffing is prepared from boiled or raw vegetables. If you are going to make classic vareniki with potatoes, then for this you need to boil the potatoes, before cleaning it and cutting into several parts (as for puree). Then the potatoes are taken out of the water and still hot tossed. Adding salt, butter or milk (hot), the resulting mashed potatoes are stuffed with vareniki. It is believed that the most delicious filling is obtained from mashed potatoes, which is added fried onions. Vareniki with raw potatoes are much easier to make. A couple of potato tubers are simply peeled and grated or grinded in a blender. Then salt and leave for two or three minutes: the potatoes will give juice. Drain the juice, squeeze the potatoes and season it with pepper. Then put the softened butter in the filling and grate with the butter with grated potatoes, forming a dense viscous mass. After that, lay out the filling on the prepared dough circles and make dumplings. Potato stuffing can be made more complex by composition, adding to it, for example, grated cheese, a boiled liver and even cottage cheese, twisted through a meat grinder. And in this stuffing put green onions, garlic, mushrooms, bacon or cracklings.
Berry filling
Filling for vareniki can be absolutelyany berries. In Russia, the most famous and popular in this capacity is cherry. And make the filling with both cherries without pits, and leaving in the berries bobki (someone likes to spit in the process of eating). But in addition to cherries in the stuffing for vareniki is any seasonal berry: strawberries, raspberries, currants, gooseberries, blackberries, cranberries. Usually, berries do not prepare for the filling - they only wash. Fresh berries are put on the dough, add sugar and pinch the edges of the dumpling. If the filling is prepared from cherries without pits, then the beans are taken out in advance, they let the excess juice drain, and then they put the cherry in the dough. Some mistresses act differently. They wash berries, pour them with sugar and leave for a couple of hours. The juice that emerged from the berries is drained, molded and boiled dumplings, and served them, watering with this juice and sprinkling with sugar. Not bad with berry stuffing and fresh home-made sour cream, and butter. By the way, such vareniki are good both in hot and in cold form.
Meat filling
Yes, yes, vareniki with meat, too, do! You can argue, saying that in this case it will not be dumplings, but dumplings. But it was not there! Firstly, dumplings are made with raw minced meat, and boiled meat is put in dumplings, and secondly, the form of vareniki also speaks for itself. So, to prepare a meat filling for dumplings, we take any boiled meat (and even better - several kinds) and twist it into minced meat. Separately fry on vegetable or cream butter and onions and add it to the stuffing. Pepper filling and salt at your own discretion, and then do with this stuffing vareniki. To the meat filling for dumplings, you can add not only fried onions, but also mushrooms, the same potatoes or cheese. You can take raw stuffing for filling and fry it with onion. You can mix minced meat with rice or with buckwheat. You can spice it with spicy greens or garlic. 
Other fillings
Strictly speaking, dumplings are souniversal that you can cook them with anything. Do vareniki with stew or with fried cabbage, adding to it (in the process of frying) onions, salt and black pepper. Vareniki are molded with a filling of hard boiled eggs with green or fried onions or even with rice. Dumplings stuffed with vegetable oil carrots. Prepared for dumplings stuffing from fresh apples, from rice with raisins and dried apricots, from cheese and onions. And dumplings are made with raw, boiled or salted fish. To such a filling add cabbage, potatoes or rice. For filling dumplings succulent fats, boiled beans with mushrooms, steamed poppy. In general, all that you like, everything with which you can make pies (patties) or pancakes use for the filling. And let pleasure not only give you food, but also its preparation. Enjoy your appetite and success in the culinary field! We advise you to read:
