Kibinai Hand Pie
When people ask me where I’m from, I say Lithuania, quickly followed by “though I don’t speak the language, nor consider myself Lithuanian.” By the time we were leaving for the States, our Jewish family was one of 20 or so left in Kaunas. I was a tween, brought up in a Russian-speaking household with, largely, Ukranian and Uzbek cuisine. It’s complicated. Though, not necessarily unusual, given Jewish history during the Soviet era.
My experience with Lithuanian food was, let’s say, limited, until we went back some fifteen years later on what can only be described as a carb-happy quest to eat as much traditional food as possible. I still remember the moment I got my hands on varskes spurgos – a crunchy cottage cheese donut – deeming the trip a wild success.
Though most traditional foods can be found around any cobble-street corner (including, inexplicably, the cold beat soup, saltibarsciai, we successfully ordered at a trendy Chinese restaurant), kibinai are exclusive to the few kilometers surrounding Trakai – a fortress town and a must-stop for tourists and Lithuanian bridal parties alike. Every weekend dozens of to-be-wed ascend on the town to partake in the taxing tradition of grooms carrying their brides across the nine bridges connecting mainland to the fortress. It’s quite impressive. If brides try to slim down for the wedding, the grooms must certainly be bulking up!
Trakai is also where a displaced community of Crimean Karaite (of Turkish and, ostensibly, Judaic roots) decided to call home some centuries back. Today, their sparse presence is marked only by the colorful, cute houses lining the town streets and by hearty half-moon-shaped pies called kibinai, served by local restaurants.
Truth be told, I knew none of this before our visit to the homeland and subsequently before, one fine day, I decided to make kibinai.
A quick search produced a slim variety of recipe pages, most of them in Lithuanian. The 80% or so that I grasped via Google Translate led me to believe that the pastry is similar to your basic shortcrust, with addition of egg and sour cream*, and is filled with minced meat, chopped onions, and basic spices.
Once I converted all the grams to Amer’can cups et al., I considered the beautiful twisted edge as my biggest barrier to success. I scoured YouTube for most detailed zoom-ins and re-watched them again and again. Even wanted to practice on play-doh, alas my kids are too old for that.
In the end, I think it was a respectable first pass – one batch with chicken and another with some leftover potato hash – and a perfect compliment to a cup of chicken soup.
* Not terribly surprising, given Lithuania’s prolific dairy assortment.
