Tiny crescent dumplings from Perm — meat and broth folded inside, pan-fried until shatteringly crisp, eaten between thumb and forefinger.
Posikunchiki (посикунчики) come from Perm, the Ural-Siberian gateway city. The name has two proposed origins: from 'sech' (to chop) for the hand-chopped meat filling, and from 'sikat' (to squirt) because biting into one releases a hot stream of juice — the latter being the popular explanation. Unlike pelmeni which are boiled, posikunchiki are pan-fried until golden and shattering. Standard street food in Perm's railway-station bistros and a regional dish you rarely find west of the Urals.
Tiny Ural meat dumplings the size of a thumbnail (filled with chopped beef, pork or lamb) — bite into one and hot broth shoots out (the name means 'spurters'). Eaten by the dozen from a wooden spoon.
Posikunchiki get their squirt not from any aspic or ice cube but from a deliberately loose, wet filling: minced meat is mixed with plenty of finely chopped onion plus cold water and salt until almost pourable, then sealed tightly (crimped like vareniki) so the moisture turns to scalding broth trapped inside as it fries. The size (2cm) is critical: larger and the broth would leak, smaller and there'd be no broth to spurt.
Variations
Fillings vary by household — pork, beef or lamb, often a pork-beef mix; the dough is wheat flour, sometimes enriched with toasted Ural grain flour (talkan); it is classically served with a garlic-and-sour-cream sauce, and can be either shallow-fried in a skillet or deep-fried.
On the Palate
Where Posikunchiki sits in the Russian flavor cloud
Ingredients
How it's made
6 steps · 1 hour 30 min
- 130 min
Mix 300g flour + ½ tsp salt + 1 egg + 100ml warm water into stiff dough. Rest 30 min covered.
- 23 min
Filling: 200g ground beef + 100g ground pork + 1 finely grated onion + 3 tbsp ice water + 1 tsp salt + ½ tsp pepper. Mix thoroughly — the ice water is the broth that later squirts.
Watch outMix the filling loose and almost pourable — that ice water is the broth that squirts later; a stiff, dry filling gives no squirt at all.
- 34 min
Roll dough very thin (1mm). Cut into 5cm rounds.
- 45 min
Place a teaspoon of filling on each round, fold in half into a crescent, crimp edges firmly to seal — no broth must leak.
Watch outPinch every seam shut tight — one gap and the broth leaks out in the pan instead of scalding inside the dumpling.
- 56 min
Pan-fry in 5mm of oil over medium-high heat, 2-3 minutes per side until deeply golden and crisp.
Watch outFry to a deep crackly gold on each side — the crisp shell is what holds the pressure so the broth bursts when you bite.
- 62 min
Drain on paper. Serve immediately — they cool fast and the broth re-absorbs into the meat if you wait.
Watch outEat them the moment they're drained — wait too long and the meat soaks the broth back up and the squirt is gone.
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