Just back from kazakhstan where at the market I tried fresh horse milk (kumish) and camel milk, along with salty horse cheese balls. But the highlight was making one of my favourite Russian dishes with my hosts - Vareniki. Vereniki are a stuffed pasta like ravioli or tortellini, but in a half-moon shape and commonly stuffed with potato, cottage cheese,or  cabbage, or less usually with pumpkin or cherries. If you ever take the Tisza Express train from Budapest to Moscow (48 hours) that stops in Lviv/Lvov (12 hours) and Kiev (24 hours), the train stops every 3 hours or so for 10-20 minutes at stations where the platforms are lined with women and children selling all sorts of homemade goods such as vareniki, blini, pirogi, cakes, sour cream, cherries, apples, etc. The longest and best stop is in Zsmerinka, where in my humble opinion, you can get the best vareniki on the planet. Grab some home-made sour cream (smetana) while you are at it.

My hosts Elmira, Lari,Rama and I made both potato and cottage cheese (tvorok/turo) vareniki. I do not have the recipe we used, but here are a couple off the net:

Ingredients
Amount     Ingredient     Preparation
2     cups     flour, all-purpose    
1     teaspoon     salt    
1     pound     cottage cheese    
1     each     egg     lightly beaten
1/3     cup     milk    
1     x     butter     melted
1     x     sour cream    

Cottage Cheese Filling
1     pound     cottage cheese    
1     each     egg     lightly beaten
1     x     salt    

Directions

 Dough:

 2 C flour 

1/2 cup NF milk or soy milk
 1 egg or 1 egg's worth of your substitute of choice
 1 tsp salt
   
 To make the dough: mix until it forms a ball.  Knead by hand for 

~ 5 min. then wrap it in plastic
 and let the dough rest for 30 min.

Filling: In a bowl, combine the cottage cheese with the egg, and eason to taste with salt. The filling should be thick enough to hold its shape in a spoon. Roll the dough quite thin on a floured board. Cut rounds with a large biscuit cutter or with the rim of a glass. For speedier work, the dough may be cut into 2 - 2 1/2 inch squares. Cut a round or square of dough on the palm of your hand. Place a spoonful of the cheese filling on the dough, fold it over to form a half circle or triangle, and press the edges together with your fingers or a fork. The edges should be free of filling. Be sure that the edges are sealed well to prevent the filling from running out. Place the vareniki on a floured board or a kitchen towel (don't crowd them), and cover with a kitchen towel to prevent drying. Drop a few vareniki at a time into a large quantity of rapidly boiling salted

(optional) water. Do not attempt to cook too many at a time. Stir very gently with a wooden spoon to separate the vareniki and to prevent them from sticking to the bottom of the pot. Continue boiling for 3 or 4 minutes.
Vareniki are ready when they are well puffed. Remove them to a colander and drain thoroughly. Place in a deep dish, sprinkle generously with melted butter, and toss very gently to coat them evenly with butter.
Serve in a large dish without piling or crowding them.

The traditional accompaniment is sour cream or crumbled
bacon, or both.

An additional egg or egg yolk, or some thick sour cream, may e used in the filling if the cottage cheese is very dry.
http://www.recipeland.com/recipe/6534/

Potato vareniki
I n g r e d i e n t s

2 pounds potatoes, cooked (save water from cooked potatoes)
2 onions chopped
1 stick margarine
Salt and pepper
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
If some of the units look unfamiliar to you,
click here for conversion chart


Method:
Cook potatoes in simmering water until soft and put them through a potato ricer. Saute onion in margarine until very soft, add 1/2 of the onions to the potatoes and season with salt and pepper.

Sift flour and salt into a bowl. Add vegetable oil and enough water to make a soft dough and mix until the dough no longer sticks to the hands. Cover dough and let rest for about 15 minutes. Roll out dough on a floured board to a 1/4-inch thickness. Cut dough into small squares and place a dollop of potato mixture in the center of each square. Fold dough, pinch ends to form a triangle. When all are made, put into boiling water and boil for about 10 minutes.

When all are cooked, drain and serve with the remaining sauteed onions on top.http://www.ruscuisine.com/recipes-by-email/archive/030210.html