Buns with meat filling

This is one of my favorite foods. When I was growing up, in Lithuania, they were being sold on the street. Piping hot, very fresh, and so so tasty...That memory stayed with me for all these years. However, I didn't know how to make them. Just recently, I came across this recipe on Lithuanian site, made some changes and now I want to share it with you. Very easy to make, perfect for lunch at work or for kids at school. You can make some changes, too, according to your background and taste buds. In the ground meat, I put some sour cream for softness. If you have mayo handy, that would be perfect, too. I said in the ingredient list, that its nice with pork and lamb. I have to admit, I made them with lamb only once, when I had guests coming for my birth day. I don't think I will be buying lamb anytime soon again, because it is so expensive. I now usually make it just with ground pork, that I get at the oriental supermarket, for less than 1.50$ a pound.

You will need:
500 ml sour cream, better regular 14%
2 lb ground meat (any kind would do, chicken is nice, I like pork with lamb, or regular (not lean) beef with lamb would do especially well).
4 regular size onions, or 2 big ones
6 eggs (or less, 4 would be fine, too)
1 pack, 450 gr butter, room temperature, marjoram 1 tsp (teaspoon), or you can add even two
salt, one teaspoon for the dough and about the same for the meat
black ground pepper
4-5 cups about a kilogram of white flour (I usually need 4 full cups)


First, make dough. Take a big dish, brake the eggs, all but 2 yolks put aside for later, small spoon of salt, half a container of sour cream, and beat everything either with a fork or a mixer. Just so it would mix all together. Then cut with the knife piece by piece room temperature butter and put about 3 glasses (cups 250 ml) flour. I like to start with just few cups of flower, you can always add more, but if you put too much, you can't take it out. So, I am careful that way. The dough should be soft not sticking to hands. If needed more flour, add. You may need about good 4 cups or so...Put the prepared dough in the fridge, may keep it overnight, or for one hour.

Meanwhile, put ground meat in another big ball, put two good spoons of sour cream (the leaner the meat, the more sour cream you may want to add), chopped onions, salt (about a teaspoon or less) pepper, marjoram. Mix well with your hands. Coriander, or otherwise known as cilantro, goes well with the meat, too. That is an extra ecpence, though. You can get that at any supermarket, veggie section where they sell parsley and dill.

Take the dough from the fridge. Make small balls,about the size of an egg. Once you start making the so called buns, you will see what size of the ball you need. Any size will do. I made some smaller ones for my son and bigger ones for us. I made all of the balls at once, they won't stick too much, so the process is faster later.
Roll a pancake look alike (round) with a rolling pin (or even a round bottle would do), take it in your hand, put 1 good teaspoon of meat mixture and close it. You must be able to close the sides of the pancake without meat touching it, othervise, the dough won't stick. You will get a half moon. Once closed, put the closed part up. Close it real well, so it wouldn't open when baking.
After you have done around 10 or so, take a baking pan, flat, put parchment paper, and put your buns onto that sheet leaving about a finger space in between them. Fill the pan with buns, if needed, make more. For me it fit 10. Once one sheet is full of buns , mix left egg yolks, add a tablespoon of water, and brush on the buns. Bake at 350-375 Fahrenheit for about 30 min. Check, once it's nicely brown, take it out. For me it took exactly 30 min. Throw the old parchment paper, put new one on the same baking sheet. Make more buns, or put the ones you already made, brush with egg yolk. Done!

Parchment paper I buy at Jonvince, as well as a lot of other stuff. It really is cheap there. I discovered parchment paper just recently, but it is very useful. I save so much time on clean up! It also helps for your baking goods not to get burned!
I suggest, to buy marjoram at the balk barn stores. It's so much cheaper. I buy small bag, provided at the store, half full, for less than a dollar. That will last you a while.