Mantı: Turkish Dumplings

Mantı is one of those dishes everyone in Turkey loves, from children to grandparents. It takes work — hours of it if you make it properly — and both the making and the eating are an event.

In some regions rolling mantı was considered a skill a woman had to have, and there are stories of it being a condition of marriage. Those days are gone, but the respect for a properly rolled sheet remains.

Set aside at least an hour for hand-rolled mantı. Once they are shaped, they cook in ten minutes.

Serves 4

Ingredients

For the dough

5 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups water, approximately
1 egg
1 teaspoon salt

For the filling

7 oz ground beef
1 onion, grated
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt

For cooking

4 cups beef stock

For the butter sauce

2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon red pepper paste
1 teaspoon dried mint

For the yogurt

1 cup yogurt
1–2 cloves garlic, crushed

To serve

Sumac, red pepper flakes, dried mint

Method

Make the dough

Put the flour and salt in a deep bowl and make a well in the center. Crack in the egg.

Work the egg into the flour, adding water gradually. Keep adding water only until it comes together — the amount varies with your flour, so go slowly.

Knead for a good 10 minutes. Mantı dough needs to be firm, not soft. Soft dough cannot be rolled thin without tearing, and a thick wrapper ruins the dish.

Cover and rest for at least 30 minutes. Ten is not enough — the gluten needs time to relax or the dough will fight you and spring back as you roll.

Make the filling

Grate the onion and squeeze out the excess liquid. Wet onion makes a loose filling that leaks.

Mix the grated onion with the ground beef, salt and pepper.

Roll and shape

Divide the dough in half — a whole batch is too much to roll at once.

Roll out as thin as you can manage. Properly rolled mantı dough is thin enough to read through. Flour the surface as you go.

Cut the sheet into squares, roughly 1 inch each. Traditional mantı are small — the saying is that forty should fit on one spoon.

Put a small pinch of filling in the center of each square. Less than you think; overfilled mantı burst.

Bring the four corners up to meet in the middle and pinch the seams closed. Work with dry hands and make sure every seam is sealed.

Keep the shaped mantı under a cloth as you work, and the unrolled dough covered.

Cook

Bring the stock to a boil in a wide pot. Add the mantı and cook for about 10 minutes, until the dough is tender and they float.

Do not crowd the pot. Cook in batches if necessary — too many at once and they stick together.

Make the sauce

Melt the butter in a small pan over medium heat. Add the red pepper paste and dried mint and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring.

Watch the heat. Burnt butter and scorched pepper paste are bitter, and mint burns fastest of all — add it toward the end.

Serve

Whisk the yogurt with the crushed garlic and a pinch of salt.

Drain the mantı, leaving a little of the cooking liquid clinging to them.

Spoon them onto warm plates, add the yogurt, then pour the hot butter sauce over the top.

Finish with sumac, red pepper flakes and more dried mint at the table.

Chef’s notes

Yogurt at room temperature, not cold. Cold yogurt against hot dumplings kills the dish, and it can split.

Mantı freeze perfectly raw. Lay them on a floured tray in a single layer, freeze solid, then bag them. Cook from frozen, adding 2 to 3 minutes.

The cooking stock is worth keeping. Strain it and use it as a