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Mantı

The dumplings are tiny — forty or more to a plate — and the smallness is the whole achievement.

Lamb, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains lamb.

Ingredients

the dough

the filling

to serve

Method

  1. THE DUMPLINGS ARE TINY -- FORTY OR MORE TO A PLATE -- AND THE SMALLNESS IS THE WHOLE ACHIEVEMENT. The dough is rolled almost transparent and cut into squares of about one and a half centimetres, each taking a filling the size of a lentil. A serving is forty or fifty of them. That matters for a practical reason and not only for show: at that size the ratio of thin dough to meat is right, they cook in four minutes, and a spoonful picks up several dumplings with yoghurt and butter together, which is how the dish is meant to eat. Made at the size of a ravioli they are doughy, take twice as long, and each one has to be dealt with separately.
  2. THE SQUARES ARE PINCHED AT FOUR CORNERS INTO A LITTLE PARCEL. A dot of filling in the middle, the four corners brought up and pinched together, then the four open seams pinched shut. It gives a small square-bottomed purse that stands up. It is slow -- a couple of hours for six people -- and there is no shortcut in it.
  3. THE ONION IS GRATED AND SQUEEZED BONE DRY. In a filling the size of a lentil there is no room for moisture: wet filling steams inside the thin dough and splits it, and the dumplings empty into the water. Grated, then wrung out in the hands or a cloth until no more comes.
  4. THE DOUGH IS ROLLED THIN ENOUGH TO SEE THROUGH. A millimetre or less. The filling should be faintly visible as a shadow when the square is held up. Any thicker and the pinched corners become a knot of raw dough.
  5. THEY ARE BOILED IN WELL-SALTED WATER AND THE WATER IS KEPT. Four minutes at a gentle boil. A ladleful of the starchy cooking water is spooned over the plated dumplings before the yoghurt -- it stops them sticking into a block and loosens the yoghurt to the right consistency.
  6. THE YOGHURT GOES ON COLD AND THE BUTTER HOT. Garlicky yoghurt straight from the bowl over the hot dumplings, then butter with tomato purée and pepper in it, foaming, poured over that. The contrast of the three temperatures is the point; stirred into a warm sauce it is a lesser dish.
  7. The flour and salt mixed with the egg and water to a FIRM dough. Kneaded 12 MINUTES and rested 40 MINUTES.
  8. The lamb, GRATED AND SQUEEZED onion, parsley, salt and pepper mixed to a smooth paste.
  9. The dough rolled out VERY THIN -- a millimetre or less, thin enough to see through -- and cut into 1.5 cm squares.
  10. A LENTIL-SIZED dot of filling placed on each.
  11. The FOUR CORNERS brought up and pinched together, then the four open seams pinched shut.
  12. Set on a floured tray, not touching. Forty or more per serving.
  13. Boiled in well-salted water 4 MINUTES at a gentle boil.
  14. Lifted out with a slotted spoon, A LADLEFUL OF THE COOKING WATER spooned over them on the plates.
  15. The yoghurt beaten with the garlic paste and spooned over COLD.
  16. The butter melted with the tomato purée until foaming, pulled off the heat, the Aleppo pepper and dried mint stirred in, and poured over HOT.
  17. Dusted with sumac.
  18. TESTED: the dumplings should be small enough that several fit on a spoon, and none should have burst.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Turkey · All recipes