Wanderlast

Passport & Plate - Gubadia

Russian Federation | Tuesday, March 11, 2014 | 5 photos

Ingredients:

For dough:
2 tbsp of instant dry yeast
2 tbsp of sugar
½ teaspoon of salt
¼ cup of oil
1 cup of warm water
flour

For filling:
2 cups of rice
1 cup of raisins
5 boiled eggs
12 tbsp of melted butter and a little more to spread on top
6 tbsp of sugar

For qort:
400g cottage cheese
1 cup milk
1 cup sugar
100g butter

Crumble Topping:
3 tbsp flour
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp sugar

How to prepare the recipe:

Prepare qort. Mix cottage cheese, milk, sugar and butter. Boil the mixture over medium heat about 10-15 minutes, stirring continuously. The mass will turn cream colored and crumbly.

Prepare dough. Mix oil, warm water, salt, sugar and instant dry yeast. Add all purposed flour. Mix everything until it's soft and all dough comes together. Cover the dough with a clean kitchen towel and let it rise for about half an hour.

Wash and drain rice three times. Follow the cooking instructions on pack. When rice is soft and crumbly, drain rice and put it aside. There will be 3 layers of rice.

For crumble toping. Put butter and sugar into flour and press together with your hands. When all flour and sugar absorbed into butter make large flat flakes.

Boil eggs and chop them finely.

Wash raisins and leave them in the warm water for a while, drain and dry.

Grease a heat-resistant round pan with some oil.

Transfer the dough to the floured work surface. Fold it a little bit and divide it into two unequal parts. Roll out the larger part of the dough to the bigger size and shape than pan that you will use. Put the dough into the pan. Put some melted butter on the dough.
Now let’s put all layers together.
1st layer is thin layer of rice.
2nd layer is qort.
3rd layer is rice again.
4th layer is chopped eggs.
5th layer is the rest of rice.
Cover rice with sugar and pour rice with melted butter and leave a little for the top.
6th layer is raisins.

Roll out the second part of the dough smaller than pan. Place it on the pie and attach sides of the dough tightly. Put the rest of melted butter on the top of the pie and strew with crumble topping.

Bake in the oven in 200 degrees for 40 minutes.
Serve warm.


Story behind the recipe:

I came from Russia, Tatarstan. As my nationality is Tatar I decided to introduce You a traditional tatar recipe of Gubadia. Gubadia is a multilayered pie. The filling can be different. Usually it contains qort (cottage cheese boiled out in milk with butter and sugar), rice, eggs, raisins. In some parts of my republic people are used to put dried apricots, minced meat and onion. Traditionally this pie is made in Russian oven. There are so many different recipes of gubadia as many families in our republic.

For ages tatar people used to make Gubadia for special occasions as naming a newborn baby, birthdays, wedding, etc. For example, on weddings only parents of newly-weds may appoint to a person who will cut it. It’s very honorable to be a person to serve this dish. And even today it hasn’t lost its value. This pie has a complicated filling and that makes it special. There is also an unusual way to eat it. For the beginning all guests share the “cap” of the pie, then the filling is served out and after that the “bottom” of the pie is cut and treated to guests. Nowadays this style of serving is not popular any more. Today the pie is cut into segments, so that every guest would get all parts of the pie.
Every family is a little world with it’s own traditions and intellectual values such as old photos, books, letters, grandparent’s houses. Those are values that help us to remember our families and the place where we come from. As for me for intellectual values I would include dishes that my grandmother and my mother cook. No one would argue there is nothing similar with the food your grandmother prepares.

For me Gubadia associates with my childhood. The time when I was spending my summer vacations in the village in my grandparents’ house. I was waking up with an incredible and unspeakable pleasant smell in my nose. That is the smell of Gubadia. My cousins and I consider Gubadia not just a pie but as a culinary masterpiece that exceed all expectations of a fastidious eater.