Sauerkraut Bread

This is really simple yet delicious dish. Cabbage pies are very common in Russia. There are a million and one recipe for a dough as well as cabbage stuffing. Some require sauteing the cabbage; some add other things to stuffing like boiled eggs; yet others use fermented Russian cabbage or a mix of it with fresh; some doughs are made with yeast and some aren't; the shape may be round or take up entire baking sheet. The pies or breads differ vastly and enjoyed by practically all. Once again I played with different recipes, tried several ways of stuffing and adapted this to my own taste buds and, these days, make it almost exclusively with sauerkraut. For dough I modified my usual Hallah dough recipe and make it with milk.

Dough

4-4&1/2 cup flour
2 eggs
4 tblsp sugar
3 tsp salt
1/4 cup oil or melted butter
1 pkg yeast=2 1/4 tsp
1 1/4 warm  milk
Stuffing
1/2 from  2lbs jar of sauerkraut drained

3large onions

1/3 c oil for sauteing

salt pepper

1 egg for egg wash

I make my dough in my Kitchen aid and do not bother mixing yeast and sugar water separately. In a mixing bowl I measure and sift the flour, add eggs, oil or butter, salt, sugar and yeast then warm milk. Then make dough with dough attachment. KitchenAid does it's job well and the dough is formed and rolled into a ball, ready for resting within 10 min. Using the same bowl, I cover the top of the dough loosely with well oiled piece of plastic wrap. My oven that is not on at the moment but has the oven light on provides a perfect place for the dough to prove. The oven is draft free and T in it raises to about 130F just from the oven light being on. With this conditions the dough is ready to be used in a couple of hours. While the dough is resting I clean the onions, cut them in halves, then quarters and slice thinly. Saute in oil over small flame to caramelize the onions.  It takes about 20 minutes for the onions to get to the perfect condition and to get caramel gold in color. Drain the sauerkraut in colander and squeeze some but not all of the moisture out. Then salt and pepper added and mix well with sauerkraut. After the dough rose and doubled in size, punch it down and roll out on a flour dusted surface to about 1/2 inch thickness. Turn the oven to 375 F. it is best to form the log directly on the baking sheet lined with silicon pad because it is not easy to transfer the log once t is made.The stuffing mix is placed in the middle and dough is formed in to a log. The seam can be placed on the bottom or the dough can be folded in as a 3 folds letter. If the dough is too thick at the ends of a log it can be trimmed and used for a decorative touch as  a small braid or flowers on the top of the log. Most importantly the steam will need to escape somehow, so either the holes have to be punctured in with a knife or a fork of the dough has to be folded decoratively to allow for steam to escape and not tear the bread open. After all has been folded and decorated, egg wash is applied with silicon brush. The bread is baked in the middle of the oven for 40-50 min, till the bread reaches the deep golden color. Allow to rest and cool down for at least 15 min before slicing.