Pisni Pyrizhky: Lenten Pies for Ukrainian Christmas Eve

Name: Traditional Pisni Pyrizhky
Prep time: 1 h
Cook time: 25 min
Total time: 2 h 30 min
Yield: 12 pies
Cuisine: Ukrainian
Ingredients: 500 g (about 4 cups) wheat flour; 12 g dry yeast, one sachet; 275 ml (about 1 cup plus 2 tbsp) warm water; 50 ml (about 3½ tbsp) sunflower oil; 1 tbsp (about 12 g) sugar; 1 tsp salt; 600 g (1 lb 5 oz) white cabbage, finely shredded; 150 g (5 oz) onion, about 1 large, finely diced; 3 tbsp sunflower oil; Salt and black pepper; 400 g (14 oz) potatoes; 300 g (10 oz) button mushrooms or wild mushrooms, thinly sliced; 150 g (5 oz) onion, about 1 large, finely diced; 2 tbsp sunflower oil; Salt and black pepper; Strong sweet black tea or sunflower oil for brushing; Sesame seeds, optional

Active time: ~1 hour | Total time: ~2½ hours, including rising | Makes: about 12 pies | Difficulty: Medium

Quick Overview

Stir yeast, sugar, and salt into warm water, add oil and flour, and knead a soft dough
Let the dough rise for about an hour
Stew the cabbage with onion until soft and not wet, or mash potatoes and fry the mushrooms with onion, and cool the filling completely
Divide the dough into pieces of about 70 g, flatten, fill, and pinch closed
Rest the pies seam-side down on a lined tray, then brush with strong sweet tea or oil
Bake at 180°C (350°F) for 20–25 minutes until golden

What Pisni Pyrizhky Are

Pisni pyrizhky (пісні пиріжки) are lenten yeast pies: small hand pies made from a dough of flour, water, and oil, filled with stewed cabbage or with potatoes and mushrooms. Pisni means lenten, made without meat or dairy. The Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine describes pyrizhky as the smaller pies, a Ukrainian specialty filled with cabbage, mushroom, peas, or poppy seed, among other things, and adds that cabbage filling is very popular.³

They suit Sviata Vecheria, the Christmas Eve Holy Supper, a meal of twelve ritual meatless and milkless dishes.¹ Hand pies filled with cabbage, mushrooms, or peas, baked or fried, are among the vegetable dishes of that night.²

The recipe below is one yeast dough with two fillings, cabbage and potato with mushroom, baked rather than fried. The method and proportions follow the published recipes listed at the end of this article.^{6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13}

The other dishes of the supper are collected on our Sviata Vecheria menu.

History & Cultural Roots

Sviata Vecheria is a fast-day meal. The Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine describes it as twelve ritual meatless and milkless dishes, and notes that the order of the dishes and even the dishes themselves are not uniform, because every region keeps its own tradition.¹ The number twelve stands for the Twelve Apostles, though some say the twelve months, and every dish is made without meat, dairy, eggs, or animal fat, using only vegetable oil.⁴ Lenten dough follows from that: water and oil take the place of milk, eggs, and butter.

What fills the table differs from place to place. Dried forest mushrooms dominate in the Carpathian west, while grains and legumes lead in central Ukraine.⁴ The Kyiv Independent says the supper’s vegetable dishes are often built around mushrooms, cabbage, potatoes, and peas, and counts hand pies among them, baked or fried.² A Ukrainian home-cooking blog is more direct: hand pies with cabbage were part of the twelve dishes on the Christmas Eve table.¹³

The encyclopedia’s entry on traditional foods places pyrizhky in the wider habit of baking pies for Sundays, feast days, and family celebrations, and records that potato and cabbage fillings are made for both varenyky and pyrizhky.³ That overlap shows in Galician cooking, where the boiled pies of Sviatvechir take potato with additions, stewed cabbage (sauerkraut, sweet cabbage, or a mix), peas, beans, poppy seed, or cherries. Potato with onion and mushrooms, and sauerkraut, are named as traditional for one Galician Sviatvechir table.⁵ The baked pies here use close versions of those two fillings.

Pyrizhky are not a fixed part of the supper. The dishes are not uniform everywhere,¹ so the pies are one option among many that a household may choose for its twelve. The sources do agree on the fast, and both fillings here keep to it.

Traditional Pisni Pyrizhky Recipe

This recipe was compiled by Heritage Healthy Kitchen from a comparison of published recipes; the sources are listed at the end of this article. Figures that are Heritage Healthy Kitchen’s own estimates rather than taken from a published source are marked as such.

The published recipes build a water-and-oil yeast dough on about 500 g of flour, with 7–12 g of dry yeast, 250–300 ml of water, and anything from 2 tablespoons to 100 ml of oil.^6,7,8,9,12 They rise it for 50–90 minutes, rest the shaped pies for 10–20 minutes, and bake at 180°C for 15–30 minutes.^{6,7,8,9,12,13} The cabbage filling ranges from 400 to 600 g of cabbage with one onion,^8,9,13 and the potato and mushroom filling takes 400 g of potatoes⁸ and 300 g of mushrooms.^8,10

Ingredients (makes about 12 pies; yield is an estimate)

For the dough

500 g (about 4 cups) wheat flour^6,7,8,9,12
12 g dry yeast, one sachet^6,7 (published recipes use 7–12 g^6,7,8,9)
275 ml (about 1 cup plus 2 tbsp) warm water (estimate within the published range of 250–300 ml^6,7,8,9,12)
50 ml (about 3½ tbsp) sunflower oil⁷
1 tbsp (about 12 g) sugar^7,8,9
1 tsp salt^6,7,8,9

Cabbage filling

600 g (1 lb 5 oz) white cabbage, finely shredded^8,13 (published recipes use 400–600 g^8,9,13)
150 g (5 oz) onion, about 1 large, finely diced^8,13 (weight is an estimate)
3 tbsp sunflower oil⁸
Salt and black pepper^8,13

Potato and mushroom filling

400 g (14 oz) potatoes⁸
300 g (10 oz) button mushrooms or wild mushrooms, thinly sliced^8,10
150 g (5 oz) onion, about 1 large, finely diced^8,10 (weight is an estimate)
2 tbsp sunflower oil⁸
Salt and black pepper^8,10

To finish

Strong sweet black tea or sunflower oil for brushing^8,10,13
Sesame seeds, optional⁶

Each filling is enough for the whole batch of dough. To make both kinds from one dough, halve each filling and make six pies of each; the amounts per pie stay the same.

Instructions

Wake the yeast. Stir the sugar, salt, and yeast into the warm water and leave it for 10–15 minutes, until foamy.^6,8,9
Knead the dough. Stir in the oil, then add the flour gradually.^8,9 Knead for 3–5 minutes on a lightly oiled surface until the dough is smooth and no longer sticks to your hands.⁷ Don’t work in extra flour: the dough should stay soft.⁶
Let it rise. Shape the dough into a ball, cover the bowl, and leave it in a warm place for about 1 hour, until roughly doubled.^6,7,8,9,12
Stew the cabbage. Fry the onion in the oil for 3–5 minutes until soft.^8,11 Add the cabbage and stew for 15–20 minutes, stirring now and then, until it is soft but not wet⁹ (published times range from 10 to 20 minutes^8,11,13). Season with salt and pepper and cool completely.^8,9,11
Make the potato and mushroom filling. Boil the potatoes until soft (about 20–25 minutes¹⁴) and mash them without milk.⁸ Fry the onion and mushrooms in the oil, stirring, until the liquid has evaporated and the mushrooms are golden; published times run from 7 to 15 minutes.^8,10,14 Mix with the potato, season, and cool completely.^8,10,14
Shape the pies. Punch down the risen dough⁹ and divide it into about 12 pieces of about 70 g (published recipes use pieces of 70–80 g;⁷ the count is an estimate). Flatten each into a round, put about 2 heaped tablespoons of filling in the centre (an estimate), and pinch the edges firmly shut.^6,8,10,13
Rest the pies. Set the pies seam-side down on a tray lined with parchment, cover them with a towel, and leave them for 15–20 minutes.^{6,7,8,10,12,13} Heat the oven to 180°C (350°F) meanwhile.^{6,7,8,9,10,12,13}
Brush and bake. Brush the pies with strong sweet tea or oil and sprinkle with sesame seeds if you like.^6,8,10,13 Bake for 20–25 minutes, until golden.^8,9,13
Serve. Let the pies cool slightly on the tray, then serve.

Kitchen Tips

Cool the filling completely before it goes into the dough. Every published recipe here that describes the filling cools it first.^8,9,10,11

Don’t skip the rest on the tray. Skipping it is the most common reason pies crack: put straight into a hot oven, the yeast releases gas all at once.⁷

Stew the cabbage until it is soft but not wet. A wet filling can leak through the seam while the pies bake.⁹

Check the yeast. Fresher yeast gives a better result, so look at the expiry date, and take the ingredients out of the refrigerator ahead of time so they reach room temperature.¹¹

Variations

Sauerkraut filling. One published filling stews 200 g of sauerkraut with a quarter head of white cabbage and a teaspoon of coriander seeds, adding the sauerkraut for the last 5 minutes.¹¹ Another simmers 500 g of sauerkraut with fried onion, water, and sugar for 20 minutes.¹² A third boils the sauerkraut first, then stews it with fried onion, caraway, and the liquid from dried porcini.⁵

Dried mushrooms. For the potato filling, one published recipe uses 50 g of dried porcini to 1 kg of potatoes and 300 g of onion: the mushrooms are soaked overnight, simmered in the same water, chopped, and mixed with mashed potato and fried onion.⁵

Added flavours. One published cabbage filling adds half a grated carrot, 2 cloves of garlic, dried basil, and parsley,¹³ another a whole carrot, 1 teaspoon of paprika, and three bay leaves to 400 g of cabbage.⁹ A potato and mushroom filling can take garlic, dill, or parsley.¹⁰

Nutritional Information

Cabbage Pies, Per Pie (1 of About 12)

Calories: approximately 217–265 kcal
Protein: approximately 5–6 g
Total fat: approximately 7–9 g
Carbohydrates: approximately 34–41 g
Sugars: approximately 3–4 g
Fiber: approximately 3 g

Potato and Mushroom Pies, Per Pie (1 of About 12)

Calories: approximately 225–274 kcal
Protein: approximately 6–7 g
Total fat: approximately 6–8 g
Carbohydrates: approximately 37–45 g
Sugars: approximately 2–3 g
Fiber: approximately 2–3 g

Nutritional values are estimates based on standard ingredient databases (USDA FoodData Central) and will vary with the flour, the vegetables, and how much oil ends up in the dough and filling. Salt, pepper, the glaze, and sesame seeds are not included.

Storage and Reheating

Baked pies keep for 2–3 days, depending on the filling.⁷ Keep them in a covered container in the refrigerator (the storage place is Heritage Healthy Kitchen’s own suggestion). To reheat, warm them on a tray in a 160°C (325°F) oven for about 8–10 minutes (both figures are estimates).

Traditional Recipe Card

Traditional Pisni Pyrizhky

Prep ~1 hourCook 20–25 minutesServes about 12 pies (estimate)

Ingredients

Dough

500 g (about 4 cups) wheat flour
12 g dry yeast, one sachet
275 ml (about 1 cup plus 2 tbsp) warm water (an estimate)
50 ml (about 3½ tbsp) sunflower oil
1 tbsp (about 12 g) sugar
1 tsp salt

Cabbage filling

600 g (1 lb 5 oz) white cabbage, finely shredded
150 g (5 oz) onion, about 1 large, finely diced (weight is an estimate)
3 tbsp sunflower oil
Salt and black pepper

Potato and mushroom filling

400 g (14 oz) potatoes
300 g (10 oz) button mushrooms or wild mushrooms, thinly sliced
150 g (5 oz) onion, about 1 large, finely diced (weight is an estimate)
2 tbsp sunflower oil
Salt and black pepper

To finish

Strong sweet black tea or sunflower oil for brushing
Sesame seeds, optional

Instructions

Wake the yeast. Stir the sugar, salt, and yeast into the warm water and leave it for 10–15 minutes, until foamy.
Knead the dough. Stir in the oil, then add the flour gradually. Knead for 3–5 minutes on a lightly oiled surface until the dough is smooth and no longer sticks to your hands. Don’t work in extra flour: the dough should stay soft.
Let it rise. Shape the dough into a ball, cover the bowl, and leave it in a warm place for about 1 hour, until roughly doubled.
Stew the cabbage. Fry the onion in the oil for 3–5 minutes until soft. Add the cabbage and stew for 15–20 minutes, stirring now and then, until it is soft but not wet. Season with salt and pepper and cool completely.
Make the potato and mushroom filling. Boil the potatoes until soft (about 20–25 minutes) and mash them without milk. Fry the onion and mushrooms in the oil, stirring, until the liquid has evaporated and the mushrooms are golden. Mix with the potato, season, and cool completely.
Shape the pies. Punch down the risen dough and divide it into about 12 pieces of about 70 g (the count is an estimate). Flatten each into a round, put about 2 heaped tablespoons of filling in the centre (an estimate), and pinch the edges firmly shut.
Rest the pies. Set the pies seam-side down on a tray lined with parchment, cover them with a towel, and leave them for 15–20 minutes. Heat the oven to 180°C (350°F) meanwhile.
Brush and bake. Brush the pies with strong sweet tea or oil and sprinkle with sesame seeds if you like. Bake for 20–25 minutes, until golden.
Serve. Let the pies cool slightly on the tray, then serve.

More authentic heritage recipes at heritagehealthykitchen.com

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between pyrohy and pyrizhky?
The Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine describes pyrohy as pies of leavened dough and pyrizhky as the smaller ones.³ The word pyrohy can also mean dumplings: the encyclopedia’s entry on Christmas lists boiled potato dumplings as pyrohy or varenyky in a Hutsul example of the Holy Supper.¹

Are pisni pyrizhky baked or fried?
Either: hand pies of this kind are baked or fried.² The published recipes used here all bake the pies at 180°C, so that is the method in this article.^{6,7,8,9,10,12,13}

Why are the pies brushed with tea or oil and not egg?
The Holy Supper is prepared without meat, dairy, eggs, or animal fat.⁴ Published lenten recipes brush the pies with strong sweet tea or oil.^8,10,13 Two of the published recipes also offer egg yolk (one with milk), which is not lenten.^6,13

Can fresh yeast be used instead of dry?
Published recipes give 20 g of fresh yeast in place of 7 g of dry,⁹ and 25 g of fresh yeast to 500 g of flour.^11,12 This recipe uses 12 g of dry yeast, the amount in two of the published dough recipes.^6,7

Must pyrizhky be among the twelve dishes?
No fixed list exists: the dishes differ by region.¹ Dried forest mushrooms dominate in the Carpathian west, and grains and legumes lead in central Ukraine.⁴ Hand pies are named among the vegetable dishes usually found on the table.²

Disclaimer

The information in this article is provided for educational and informational purposes only. Heritage Healthy Kitchen makes no representations or warranties regarding the accuracy or completeness of any content on this site. Nutritional values are estimates only and will vary depending on the specific ingredients, brands, and measurements used. This content is not intended as dietary, medical, or professional nutritional advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider regarding any dietary needs or health conditions. Heritage Healthy Kitchen is not responsible for any outcomes resulting from the use of recipes or information published on this site.

Cook by Occasion

This recipe is part of our Sviata Vecheria menu.

Traditional Pisni Pyrizhky Recipe: Lenten Cabbage and Mushroom Pies for Ukrainian Christmas Eve