Kalduny/work

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Kalduny or kolduny (Belarusian: Калдуны́, Russian: Кoлдуны́) is a Belarusian dish, a kind of dumplings. In Slavic languages the word means ‘magicians’, ‘sorcerers’, however it is unclear how the word entered into the cuisine.

Some people maintain it came from the West (Germany or Czech Crown) in XV century (in medieval Latin calduna meant “still warm bowels of just killed animal”, derived from calidus – “warm)”. But Belarusian Tatars who settled in the country in XIV-XV centuries, insist that Kalduny is the descendant of similar Tatar dish kundumy. These big kalduny are prepared for the major Moslem feasts, with lavishly spiced mutton or veal stuffing and are eaten by spoon so that dough wrapping is not broken (torn?) and not a single drop of delicious juice from inside is lost. Traditional Tartar kundumy were deep fried in a good amount of melted sheep fat.

Kalduny, dough dumplings with meat, mushroom or other stuffing are indeed related to similar dishes both in the West ad in the East, from Italian ravioli to Russian pelmeni and Uzbek manty.

Same as for many other dishes, Belarusians argue with Poles and Lithuanians for the priority of introducing kalduny into the cuisine of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The most famous are Kalduny a-la Count Tyshkevich invented in the XIX century by the old aristocratic Belarusian Tyshkevich (Tyszkiewicz) family, and this increases chances of Belarusians in the vigorous battle for heritage.Kalduny are made with smoked ham & mushroom stuffing and were long considered the country’s ‘visiting card’ – although decades of Soviet-time oblivion almost erased their trace from the popular memory, and now they are served only in few local restaurants.

The simplest dough for kalduny is made of flour mixed with tepid water with some salt. But in the days of yore any decent gentry housewife had her own secret of dough: some added beaten eggs, some flax seed oil, some baking soda. Some maintain that the true dough for Kalduny should me mixed with onion juice, not water. Anyway, good dough for kalduny shall be soft but elastic, easy to strain and to glue. Well blended dough has to be wrapped into a clean serviette and left to cool and to ‘rest’ for some time. When shaping your own kalduny, lay the ready ones on a clean surface strewn with flour and close the rest of the dough with a kitchen towel so that it don’t dry out.

Kalduny may be both a main course and a dessert, depending on stuffing. For the latter meat, or fish, or farmer cheese, or dried fruit, may be used. Stuffing should be neither too ‘hard’ nor too sticky – best if you can shape small 1 inch ball from it. It should not get between the 2 edges of the glued kalduny so that they do not disintegrate during cooking. The sauce with which kalduny are served also depends on stuffing. For ‘Vilnia’ (Vilnius) stuffing melted butter is the best, while for ‘Russian’ stuffing – thick sour cream, and fruit syrups – for the fruit stuffing.

Most kalduny are best when boiled in big shallow casserole at low heat in well-salted water, just some 5-6 minutes after surfacing. But some ‘species’ can be baked, fried. Those in Polesian style, with stuffing of boiled river fish and hardboiled eggs are, for instance, deep-fried. Almost infinite number of combinations of dough, stuffing and sauce gives unlimited potential for the creativity which still mostly lay unclaimed: the country is dominated by Russian pelmeni and, partly, by the Ukrainian vareniki.

[edit] References

• Szymanderska H. Encyclopedia polskiej sztuki kulinarnej. RRA, Warszawa, 2003.
• Holub. Przy wilenskim stole. 1992.