Kalduny: Belarusian Dumplings, Their History and Their Many Kinds

Kalduny (калдуны) are Belarusian filled dumplings: circles of thin dough folded around meat, mushrooms, fish or cheese, sealed tight and usually boiled in salted water. They come to the table with melted butter, sour cream or hot broth. Aliaksandr Biely sets them in a family that runs from Italian ravioli to Russian pelmeni and Uzbek manty.

Everything here comes from the kalduny recipes in The Belarusian Cookbook, which gives three doughs and eight kinds of kalduny. They run from Tatar mutton dumplings to deep-fried fish kalduny from Palessie. Their name links them to the figures in our guide to witches, sorcerers and healers in Belarusian folklore.

What does "kalduny" mean?

Kalduny are among the most enigmatic of Belarusian dishes.

In Slavic languages the name means "magicians", "sorcerers" or "wizards". The word was still in use, if rarely, in the Belarusian countryside of the 1890s. In Remnants of the Ancient Worldview among Belarusians, the ethnographer Adam Bahdanovich lists what villagers called people who dealt with the Unholy One. Among the names is "kolduny, another word for sorcerers".

How the dumplings got that name is less clear, and Biely gives two theories. One says the word came from the West, perhaps from Germany or the Czech Crown in the 15th century. In medieval Latin, calduna meant the "still-warm bowels of a freshly slaughtered animal".

The other traces kalduny to kundumy, a dish brought by the Tatars who settled in Belarus in the 14th and 15th centuries. Kundumy were large dumplings with a richly spiced mutton or veal filling, served at major Muslim feasts. They were eaten carefully with a spoon so the dough would not tear and lose its juices. Unlike Belarusian kalduny, they were deep-fried in melted sheep fat.

How do you make kalduny dough?

The simplest dough is flour, lukewarm water and salt. In earlier times, Biely writes, every well-off housewife had her own secret: beaten eggs, flaxseed oil, baking soda, even onion juice instead of water. The kneaded dough was wrapped in a clean napkin and left to rest before filling.

Whatever the method, good dough for kalduny should be soft yet elastic, easily stretched and pliable, ensuring the edges seal tightly.

The book gives three doughs. The basic dough is flour, egg, water and salt. The "elegant" dough uses onion juice and an extra yolk instead of water, which tenderizes it, and is rolled very thin. The buckwheat dough mixes buckwheat and wheat flour, warmed together, then kneaded with hot water.

A few rules keep kalduny whole. Keep the rolled dough under a damp towel so it does not dry out. Leave room for the filling to swell, and prick the sealed dumplings lightly with a fork. Never let filling get caught in the seam. Most kalduny are boiled over low heat in a large, shallow pan of salted water.

What kinds of kalduny are there?

• Tatar-style kalduny: beef and mutton ground with mutton fat, grated onion, garlic, marjoram or oregano and coriander. Served with broth, sour cream or melted butter.
• Buckwheat kalduny with cheese: buckwheat dough around farmer cheese mixed with egg, sugar and butter. Serve with butter or sour cream, or sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.
• Palessian-style kalduny: from Palessie, the forests and swamps of southern Belarus. Thin yeast dough wraps boiled river fish, hard-boiled egg and slices of herring, and the dumplings are deep-fried.
• Kalduny with Lenten stuffing: mushrooms and onions in the grated-potato dough of the book's stuffed draniki. The dough is made without eggs, and the kalduny are fried in oil.
• Kalduny by Melchior Wankowicz: from the kitchen of the Polish-Belarusian writer. Veal, lamb and kidney fat in small mounds, layered with butter and served with cups of hot broth.
• Lithuanian kalduny: beef tenderloin, kidney suet, allspice and marjoram, as given by Elena Molokhovets in A Gift to Young Housewives.
• Belarusian broth with kalduny: dumplings of minced beef and pork simmered in homemade meat broth, traditionally for special occasions. A second recipe serves them in beef or veal bouillon.
• Fruit kaldunki: small sweet dumplings for dessert, with whipped cream, cinnamon-sugar sour cream or fruit syrup.

Kalduny and the potato

Kalduny are older than the potato in Belarus. Potatoes arrived with German colonists in the mid-18th century. The book says early potato dishes drew on older grain and legume recipes such as kalduny, kliotski, babka and kishka. The Lenten kalduny above come full circle: their dough is grated potato, shaped like stuffed draniki.

How do you serve kalduny?

• Melted butter or sour cream, the book's usual finish for boiled kalduny.
• Hot broth, in the bowl or in cups on the side.
• Sauce for kalduny: strained Tatar broth heated with vinegar and fresh lovage, with butter whisked in.
• Borshch: the book's traditional borshch with beet kvass is served "optionally with kalduny or vushki". See our article on Belarusian borshch.