Main Page
Fast and tasty
Wizards with meat

Kolduny (Meat-Stuffed Potato Pancakes)

Original, made from everyday ingredients, hearty, and delicious! Kolduny are a traditional Belarusian potato dish — essentially potato pancakes (draniki) with a filling, here a savory ground-meat one. That filling is what lets you serve kolduny as a main course.

hallen-bunny

Recipe author

Composition / ingredients

Servings:

Potatoes

800

Pork

400

Onion

Eggs

Flour

Vegetable oil (for frying)

100

Pepper

Salt

Translation table of volumetric measures

Nutrients and energy value of the composition of the recipe

By weight of the composition:

Proteins 19 % 6 g

Fats 42 % 13 g

Carbohydrates 39 % 12 g

184 kcal

GI: 83 / 0 / 17

Cooking method

Cooking time: 30 min

Step 1:

How to make kolduny? Gather your ingredients. Pork with a little fat marbled in makes for a juicier filling — I used lean pork. Rinse the meat and pat it dry with paper towels. Scrub the potatoes well under running water and dry them.
Step 2:

Start with the meat filling. Cut the pork into small pieces and run it through a meat grinder. (Slightly frozen meat is easier to grind, by the way.)
Step 3:

Peel an onion and chop it very finely — you can run it through the meat grinder too, like I did. Add the chopped onion, salt, and spices to taste to the ground pork and mix until smooth. Set the filling aside to rest a bit.
Step 4:

Now make the potato batter. Peel the potatoes and grate them on the finest side of the grater. To save time you can run them through the meat grinder, but my grandmother's original recipe used a fine, spiked grater that grinds the potatoes almost to a purée.
Step 5:

Add the egg, flour, and salt to the grated potato and mix well. The amount of flour may vary with the consistency — the batter should be fairly thick, like heavy sour cream.
Step 6:

Add frying oil to a skillet and heat it over medium heat. Drop a tablespoon of potato batter onto the hot pan, then top with a heaping teaspoon of the meat filling, spreading it into a thin layer.
Step 7:

Cover the filling with another spoonful of potato batter.
Step 8:

Fry the kolduny over low heat for about five minutes per side, until golden. You can cover the pan toward the end of frying to make sure the meat filling cooks through.
Step 9:

Transfer the finished kolduny to paper towels to drain the excess oil. Serve them hot with sour cream. Pickled and marinated vegetables are great on the side too. Enjoy!

Kolduny come out big and filling — one or two will do it. If you love potato pancakes and meat patties, this dish is for you; the filling inside stays really juicy.
Always wash eggs before using them, since even a seemingly clean shell can carry harmful bacteria; a food-safe wash and a brush work best.
Every oil is only good up to a certain temperature — its smoke point, past which it starts to burn and form harmful compounds, including carcinogens. For how to gauge frying temperature, which oil to reach for, and which to skip entirely, see here.
Note: the wrong pan can ruin even the best recipe. For all the details on choosing the perfect pan for different dishes, see here.