I wrote before about traditional Turkish cuisine, and I’ve
share with you which ones are my favorite here. But today I have to make a
special post just about Manti, the most famous dumpling from Turkish cuisine. Manti
dumplings typically consist of a spiced meat mixture, usually lamb or ground
beef in a dough wrapper, and either boiled or steamed. And there is the
vegetarian version, which involves bigger patches of dough filled with a
mixture made out of onion and potatoes fried in oil.
There are many different variations of Manti in terms of
shape and way of serving, but the most famous type of Turkish Manti is the one
from Kayseri, an Anatolian city. Usually Manti are boiled or baked rather
than steamed and tend to be small in size in this region. Here Manti are
typically served with a dressing made of yoghurt and garlic, spiced with red
pepper powder and topped with ground sumac - (and/or dried mint because they put it in
everything). It can also be served with the water it was boiled in, and often
in Kayseri it is consumed as a soup prior to the main dish.
The dish is really tied up to the local culture:
“In Kayseri when a couple is engaged to be married, the
mother of the groom visits the bride's house and during this visit the bride
should prepare Manti for her prospective mother-in-law. The smaller the Manti
dumplings are, the more the bride is considered to be skillful in the kitchen.
Traditionally the dumplings prepared for the prospective mother-in law are
supposed to be so small that 40 of them can be fit into one spoon. Manti may be
made from shredded meat of quail, chicken or goose in some regions of Turkey,
while boş mantı (‘empty dumpling’) lack filling entirely.” – source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manti_(dumpling)
We had a lot of fun preparing the most famous dish from Kayseri:
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