Polish · main

Pierekaczewnik (Podlasie Tatar Layered Meat Pie)

Name: Pierekaczewnik (Podlasie Tatar Layered Meat Pie)
Prep time: 2 h 47 min
Total time: 4 h 2 min
Cuisine: Polish
Ingredients: all-purpose flour — 500 g; eggs — 400 g; water — 120 g; salt — 5 g; warm clarified butter — 200 g; lamb shoulder roast — 700 g; boneless beef chuck — 300 g; onions — 220 g; freshly ground black pepper — 7 g; salt — 5 g; egg yolk — 100 g; regular milk — 15 g

Pierekaczewnik (Podlasie Tatar Layered Meat Pie) reads richness 8.4, umami 7.5 and salinity 4.5 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a Polish main, about 4 hr 2 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

Umami & Savory — 8.1 / 10
Sweet & Fruity — 1.9 / 10
Sour & Bright — 0.5 / 10
Bitter & Earthy — 2.1 / 10
Rich & Fat — 8.6 / 10
Aromatic & Spice — 3.3 / 10

The measured notes (of 18)

Richness 8.4 · Umami 7.5 · Salinity 4.5 · Allium 3.1 · Earthy 1.9 · Sweetness 1.9 · Warm Spice 1.5 · Funk & Ferment 1.3 · Herbaceous 1.0 · Bitterness 1.0 · Nutty 0.7 · Heat 0.6

What's in it (12)

all-purpose flour — 500 g
eggs — 400 g
water — 120 g
salt — 5 g
warm clarified butter — 200 g
lamb shoulder roast — 700 g
boneless beef chuck — 300 g
onions — 220 g
freshly ground black pepper — 7 g
salt — 5 g
egg yolk — 100 g
regular milk — 15 g

Time & effort: about 4 hr 2 min (2 hr 47 min active) · effort: involved

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 282.5 kcal, 13.4 g protein, 17.8 g fat, 16.5 g carbs

Dietary: Contains meat · Contains dairy · Contains egg — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (9 steps)

Work the flour, eggs, water and salt into a firm dough and knead it hard for 12 minutes. It should be stiffer than pasta dough and completely smooth. Rest it under a bowl for 1 hour.
Mix the minced lamb and beef with the onion, pepper and salt. Do not brown it; the meat cooks raw inside the pastry and its juices are what keep the sheets from drying.
Divide the dough into six. Roll each piece out on a floured cloth, then stretch it over the backs of your hands until it is thin enough to read newsprint through, about 50 cm across. This is a strudel-thin pastry, and the Tatar cooks of Kruszyniany and Bohoniki judge a pierekaczewnik by how many layers you got out of it.
Brush each stretched sheet generously with clarified butter and stack them, buttering between.
Spread the meat filling over the stack in an even layer, leaving a 3 cm margin.
Roll the stack up into a long loose rope, then coil the rope from the centre outward like a snail into a buttered 26 cm round tin. Tuck the end under.
Brush the top with the egg yolk glaze, cover the tin with foil and bake at 180 C for 1 hour 30 minutes.
Uncover and bake 20 minutes more until the coils are deep gold and crisp at the edges.
Rest 15 minutes, then cut in wedges across the coils. The sweet version, made with apple, sugar and cinnamon in place of the meat, is the festival one; this is the everyday.

Dishes with a similar flavor shape

Swedish Meat Balls — Other
Cemita Poblana de Milanesa — Mexican · Puebla
Tavë Kosi (Lamb Baked Under Yogurt) — Albanian
Dyrlægens Natmad (The Veterinarian's Midnight Snack) — Danish
Keşkek (Ceremonial Pounded Wheat and Lamb) — Turkish

Keep reading: what richness, umami, salinity mean in the flavor lexicon · the world's cuisines, by flavor.

See how this dish fits your palate — take the short taste test →

Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.