Mandryky (мандрики, curd cheese pastries)

The most beautiful thing about mandryky is that they look half-finished on purpose: open little pastry cups, their crimped edges holding sweet curd cheese like something packed for a journey. The filling should not be smooth like a cake cream. It should keep a little grain, a little dairy tang, so your teeth know this began as farmer cheese and not pudding.

These belong to Polissia and to the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, after the Petriwka fast, when milk and eggs come back to the table with a sigh of relief. The name leans toward mandry, wandering, and that is how people explain them: food for travelers, for apostles on the road, for children running in and out of the yard with sugar on their fingers.

The one thing that decides the dish is the cheese. Drain it until it holds its shape in your palm, then sweeten it gently and bind it with egg, because wet curd makes the pastry sulk and slump. Aunt Nadia wrote only, "take good cheese, not tired cheese," which is not a measurement, but she was right.

Make more than you think. A plate of twelve looks generous for exactly seven minutes.