Belish

Belish is a round Tatar pie, the everyday celebration food of Tatar cuisine, made across Tatarstan and Bashkortostan. Unlike the triangle echpochmak, belish is a large, round, covered pie, filled with diced meat (traditionally duck, but also chicken or beef) and raw potato, seasoned with onion, salt and pepper. The dough is a yeasted wheat dough, the filling placed raw and cooked inside the pie during baking, the juices of the meat and potato creating a gravy within the crust. A small hole in the lid allows steam to escape and lets broth be poured in midway through baking. The pie is served whole, cut into wedges, each wedge a complete meal of pastry, meat and potato in savoury gravy.

A golden, dome-topped pie sliced open to reveal tender meat chunks, soft potato and a pool of savoury gravy in a yeasted pastry shell. Each wedge is a meal, the gravy soaking into the crust at the bottom.

The technique is a covered pie with raw filling cooked inside. The dough is flour, milk, egg, butter and yeast, proved. A round is lined in a pie dish with overhang. The filling is diced raw meat (duck, chicken or beef) mixed with diced raw potato, onion, salt and pepper. The filling is mounded in the dough-lined dish, a lid placed on top, sealed, a hole pierced in the centre. Baked at 200 degrees C for 50 to 60 minutes. Halfway through, a ladle of hot broth is poured through the hole to keep the filling moist. The lid is removed in the last 10 minutes to brown the filling if liked. The long bake cooks the raw potato and meat through while the dough browns.