Kulebyaka: King of Russian Salmon Pies
Before Hawaii: a story and recipe from The Baking Wizard!
Kulebyaka, also called Coulibiac, is a type of pie with a layered filling.
Baked Kulebyaka Just the Recipe Page I am completely smitten with a smashing new cookbook on Russian cooking, “T-Bone Whacks and Caviar Snacks” (2018, University of North Texas Press), written by Sharon Hudgins, a Russian scholar and former University of Maryland professor. Sharon and I have known each other for many years, and I was thrilled when she sent me a copy of her book.
A Savory Salmon Pie Wrapped up in a Crisp Pastry
This is a book about the foods and people of Siberia and the Russian Far East, a region often given short shrift in other Russian cookbooks. And Russia’s Asian side is dear to my heart because my father was born there, in Irkutsk, and I grew up eating many dishes his mother, my Baba, cooked for us in Shanghai, where I grew up. As I leafed through the book, my eyes widened when Kulebyaka popped up. As I read the recipe for this multi-layered Russian salmon pie with rice, mushrooms, onions, and hard-cooked eggs, all wrapped snugly in a crisp pastry crust, tasty memories came flooding back. I just had to have it again. The Kulebyaka recipe in “T-Bone Whacks and Caviar Snacks,” and in other sources, all say to bake the pie free-form.
When my family made it after we emigrated to the United States, we baked it in a jelly-roll pan. Free-form is definitely the way to go because the pie is a celebration of both crust and filling, and free-form gives you lots of flaky, crispy, crust. Sharon has generously allowed me to present the Kulebyaka recipe as written in her cookbook, which I’ve tweaked just a bit. Because the recipe involves several parts—all of which can be readied a day ahead—I am suggesting you make it easy on yourself by substituting store-bought Pepperidge Farm puff pastry (or any brand you like) for the homemade crust. I am sure that once you’ve made and eaten this glorious pie, you’ll be as crazy about it as I am. “T-Bone Whacks and Caviar Snacks” is a treasure trove of Russian history, recipes, the places Sharon and her husband, Tom, have lived, and above all the personal relationships they created with the incredible people they met and cooked with in Russia.