Nikki

There are two people in my life who teach me about Gen Z culture - my brother... and Nikki. It's because she's casually a TikTok star... to me. Phenomenal movie genre parody content. Nikki identifies as a typical American with a dash of spice from Russia. That's a simplistic way of saying her mom is from the States and her dad is an Ashkenazi Jewish immigrant and that it's complicated to claim either Russian or Jewish when she wasn't raised with strong traditions from either camp. This resonated with me because how do we claim heritage and culture?* Anyways, it's possible I met Nikki before, but I got to know her and her big beautiful blue eyes on a mutual friend's birthday beach weekend trip in high school. And even then I think we all knew she was a budding TikTok star.

 

So Nikki's dumplings are Russian pelmenis stuffed with what is effectively a thick clam chowder or as Nickles apparently called it, "soup dub-i-dee-dub."

I spent a meditative evening at home making this pasty filling. Taking it one step at a time, just hovering over the wok pan thing my parents have, deeply inhaling the garlic, almost choking on the bacon fumes. Watching the potato cubes simmer away in lots and lots of heavy cream. Folding in the chopped clams.

Okay so in my light research into what makes a pelmeni a pelmeni, I kept finding that pelmeni were usually filled with ground meat - raw ground meat mixed with garlic, onions, and spices to preserve it. They are then boiled and served with sour cream. Polish pierogi have a thicker wrapper and are more varied, filled with mashed potatoes or cabbage, cheese, mushrooms or sweet dessert variations. Then there's Ukranian varenyky, which are similar to pierogi but often filled with fermented milk products and steamed instead of boiled. And Georgian khinkali which are eaten in a specific way - grabbing by the tip where the folds gather, taking a bite and sucking out the juices like a soup dumpling, and discarding the tips.

So I guess what I made was more like a pierogi.

Even the dough variations look pretty similar. I landed on this recipe with all sour cream instead of buttermilk. Topped with a dollop of sour cream and sprinkling of fresh thyme. 

Things I would do differently: almost nothing, I loved these little plump butts.

Nikki's complete list:

pelmeni with sour cream

kasha with butter

belochka candies (grilyazh)

krabby patty gummies

gushers

clam chowder with the whole packet of oyster crackers

*From The Cooking Gene, Michael Twitty

Cooking from a place of heritage, identity, and belonging is a powerful thing fraught with class and cultural politics. The first debate is about authority. The second debate is about authenticity and who is representing what and why. The third is usually about ownership. The fourth, but not the last, is usually audience. ... I am an obsessive cook with compulsive genealogist tendencies who can point to a map of Africa, Europe, North America, and with it, the South, and guide you on trade winds to tidal creeks leading to ports, leading to roads and to plantations and more roads and more plantations to cities. It's exhausting but necessary. "Who are you and what does the plate of food you put before me communicate to us who you are?" We've all heard the questions. My answer is plain: my food is my flag.