This is one of the greatest foods Kazakh cuisine has to offer. Even though it looks complicated to make, once you make it you will see that it’s fairly easy dish to prepare. Trust me, you will love this one.
Ingredients:
- Finely chopped lamb or beef or ground beef
- Chopped onions
- Chopped uncooked potatoes
- Salt and black and red pepper to taste
- Dough
- First of all, you have to start with making a meat filling. Simply mix it all together. There are also some varieties of filling. For example, some people add cabbage, and even pumpkin. Then it is a time to make a dough. For Russian people, make it as you would for pelmeni. For the rest of you, mix 1 glass of flour with 2 eggs and 1 glass of milk, add salt and until a soft dough forms. Knead on floured surface until dough is elastic.
- The athentic way to make it is to take a rather big piece of dough and with a help of rolling pin shape dough in a big circle or square if you are that good 0.5 cm thick. Then cut the dough into strips and into 2.5-3″ squares. Then spoon 1.5-2 teaspoons of filling onto center of square. Gather points of square and pinch together just above the filling.
- Take two of the each opposite edges and pinch them together.
- The other way to make manti would be to take some dough and make a “sausage” (1 inch in diameter). Divide into pieces (1,5-2 inch thick). Roll each piece with rolling pin until it is around 3″in diameter.
- Fill each round with 1 tablespoon of the meat mixture. Pinch edges together as if it was a square and connect the opposite sides.
Manti can be frozen to be cooked later (you can keep them in the freezer for a long time), or cooked immediately. To cook manti, you will need a steaming pan. - Brush the steamer with butter and arrange manti fairly close, but not completely touching each other. Put a little bit of butter on the top of each one. Steam for 35-45 minutes depending on how many you are making. Also, if you don’t have steamer, but eager to try it you can make it in a deep frying pan.
- Simply melt 2-3 tablespoons of butter or margarine and arrange manti on the pan and then add water to almost to cover them. Cook with the lid closed for about 15-20 min on medium. You will need to check in them a lot because water will evaporate. Then just try one to see if it’s ready.
