Hi! My name is Adviye Sena Çimen (you can call me Sena) and I am a Turkish high school student who is here to give one of my favorite recipes: Mantı.
Since mantı is a dish that originated from China and it takes its name from the Chinese-Korean word “mantou”,it makes sense that mantı is a dish that is similar to dumplings. While Turkish people were still living in Central Asia, they learned how to cook mantı from Chinese people in the 13th century. Back then, mantı didn’t have fillings; it was slightly different than the mantı today, and the researcher Aylin Tan decided to call it “Tutmaç.” During migration, Turkish people took the recipe with them to Anatolia. Mantı was an important dish in the Ottoman Empire too.
Tutmaç Çorbası (Tutmaç Soup) picture: Arda’nın Mutfağı
Mantı is a popular dish in my city (Kayseri) and all the Turkish people know that. It is so popular that people think Mantı was first made in Kayseri, even though it is a Chinese dish. But as time passed, Mantı became a different dish from Tutmaç and dumplings, so it is understandable why people think mantı was first cooked in Turkey. There are a lot of different ways to cook mantı (frying, boiling…) but today I’ll give the most popular recipe in my city, Kayseri.
Ingredients:
Dough ingredients:
— 3 Water Glasses of all-purpose plain flour (+ a little extra for rolling)
— 1 Water Glass of water
— 1 egg, beaten
— Salt
For the filling:
— 300 grams of ground beef (There are vegetarian ways to cook mantı but mantı filled with ground beef is the most popular way to cook it in my city)
— 1 onion
— Black Pepper
— Salt
For the yogurt:
— 1 cup of yogurt
— 2 garlic cloves, grated
— Salt
For the oil sauce:
— 2 tablespoon of tomato paste
— 1 tablespoon of olive oil
For the topping:
— Chili pepper
— Dry Mint
First, make the dough. Sift the flour into a wide bowl and make a well in the middle. Then, add the salt and egg. While pouring the water, knead the dough using your hands until it is smooth and elastic. Cover the dough and leave it to rest.
While the dough is resting, make the filling. Grate the onion and combine it with the ground beef. Season with black pepper and salt. Mix well.
Make small dough balls. Work with one piece of dough at a time. (Don’t forget to cover the rest of it.) Roll the dough ball out with a little bit of flour on the floured surface, and make sure it is not very thin. Then, cut the dough into small squares (roughly 2-2,5cm). After that, put the filling in the middle of each square and pinch the opposite corners.
It should look like this.
picture: Ozlem’s Turkish Table
Then, pour the hot water and a pinch of salt in a pot, and add the dumplings when it boils. Boil them until they soften.
Mix all the ingredients for the yogurt sauce. While mantı is cooking, prepare the oil sauce. Mix all the ingredients in a pan and heat them for around a minute.
Serve it with yogurt and oil sauce on them :)
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