Mid-Atlantic Gardening: Cookies for Christmas?, 5 by Gitagal

Gitagal wrote:
Well!
I WILL be baking tomorrow or Wednesday, but NOT cookies. I never bake any cookies nor cakes...And--you can imagine why!

I will be doing the all day annual marathon (from scratch too) making my Latvian "Pirags".
I do a massive amount--as every get-together I go to, mostly asst. family ones, I HAVE TO bring lots of these.

These are truly for a special event Christmas being the most common.
The dough is made by hand--and it is this lovely, fragrant yeast dough rich with milk and butter
and shortening (Crisco) and a bit of sugar and salt and some cardamon, etc....Hand-kneading is a given
as no mixer can handle the thick dough at the end. So--I have to finish by hand.

When done--the bowl gets covered with a thick terry towel and put on the TOP of the stove with the oven on just to 100*.
Just enough warmth to help the dough rise---that takes about 2 hours.
I make it in the largest of the SS bowls that come in the set of four.

Then--pounds and pounds of good ham and thick Applewod bacon and onions have already been diced in
no bigger than 1/4" dice and mixed together with generous sprinkling of black pepper.
That will be the filling--one tsp per one "Pirags"....Oh--I could guess that I make close to 300 of these.

They are delicious warm--the ultimate Hors-deur...and finger-food.
I have photos from last year----YES! You may gawk--and drool....

1--The bowl-full of the risen dough. Now--this bowl is 16" in diameter.
2--This is just part of the 4+ lbs. total of the diced meat mixture
3--This is the process. One at a time....Cut a small chunk of dough--flatten it a bit-
put a tsp. of meat mixture-pinch it closed--and shape it into a crescent. One down!
4--Here is one cookie sheet full. Now just to ssmear some egg on each-- and in the oven they go.
5--A pile of the finished Pirags. Now you may drool......

Since I make these ahead of time--I have to bag them up and freeze them.
Now--most of you know that I do not have room in my freezer....I may ask to use my neighbor's (Olga's).
Her freezer is mostly empty.

OK! Now I know some of you will ask for the recipe. Believe me--you will NOT want to go through all this,
and if you take shortcuts--then it is not the real thing. That would bug me to no end.....So--don't ask, please.

Paul--You are lucky--as you will get some on Friday to eat as you drive to NJ. I will fix you a "doggie bag"....

Gita