How to eat manti according to etiquette. What to serve with manti: perfect combinations, choice of sauces and cooking tips Spicy Almaty santan
Gourmets know the unique taste of real manti. Their smell fills the entire body and causes uncontrolled flows of hungry saliva. And when there is no more strength to endure, after a long 45 minutes, they finally put a whole dish of smoking manti on the table, the feast begins.
Manti is a real feast of the stomach! Believe me, those who have tried this dish at least once will forever remain in the ranks of its ardent admirers and devoted admirers.
In the cuisine of all Asian and Eastern countries there are manti, but this dish is called differently everywhere. The origin story, as always, has no historical confirmation and is more like a legend. It is absolutely known only that manti comes from China.
Historians of the Celestial Empire say that this dish got its name after a certain Chinese commander could not overcome a small but very turbulent river. Liang Juge was advised to pay for the crossing by making a sacrifice. The water spirit needed fifty heads of barbarians. The priests said so, and it is not customary to argue with them.
Having shown ingenuity, the cunning Chinese deceived both the priests and the spirits. He ordered meat pies to be steamed and molded so that they resembled a human head. Liang Juge called them "manty" or "mantou", which in one translation means "barbarian's head", and in another - "stuffed head". The trick was successful, and the name stuck to the dish.
As manti were called before, now it’s hard to understand. Perhaps one of the surviving names was the first. The Uighurs call them buuz, in the countries of Central Asia they say poses or bozy. In many parts of China, manti also have a different name. More often they are called mantou or bangzi. The most interesting thing is that not only the names do not match, but also the recipe of this dish. And still they say that manti are prepared.
The dough for making classic manti is kneaded with water and flour, salt is added. Do not put eggs in this dough. Therefore, the statement that for manti the dough is kneaded like dumplings is fundamentally wrong. The structure of the test for these products should be different. And the elasticity, which is so necessary for making dumplings, is completely unsuitable for manti. In extreme cases, you can put only the yolk. Protein will make the dough "rubber". The dough should lie down for at least two hours. During this time, it must be kneaded several times.
It will take an hour to prepare the real stuffing. Meat in manti is the most tender lamb. It must be fresh, not frozen. Finely chop both meat and onion. In order for the manti to be juicy, the volume of the onion should be two-thirds of the amount of meat. All this is cut into small cubes. Then salt, pepper, be sure to add zira, pounded with your fingers.
A small but very important secret. If you add a little milk or water to the minced meat, then the manti will be unusually juicy. Try to do this once, and very soon manti without this addition will seem juicy to you.
Let the minced meat stand for about twenty minutes, so that the smell of onions and cumin soaks the meat. Now roll out the dough very thinly. Manti is molded in each country in its own way. Somewhere crosswise, somewhere they leave a hole, and in some places, according to ancient tradition, they still depict the head. Choose how to sculpt yourself, it does not affect the taste.
They are cooked in mantyshnitsa. This is a special-shaped pan, which has several tiers. They are flat aluminum plates with holes. Water boils in the lower part, steam evenly flows through the holes. Due to this, manti are cooked.
Achik-chuchuk salad is prepared for manti. It is thinly sliced onions and tomatoes until translucent. They are salted, peppered, finely chopped basil leaves are added and garnished with pomegranate seeds. You can put sour cream or cream on the table. Just never serve mayonnaise to manti. With its heaviness, it will simply kill the unique subtlest taste of this dish.
By the way, the word "manti" does not have a singular. You should say: "Manti, one piece." The inventive Russian language added the suffix “-yshk” to the incomprehensible and not very convenient word, and it turned out to be a delicious mantyshka.
The filling of the manti may be different. If you mix lamb, beef and pork (as the Chinese do), eaters will get a real culinary shock. Very tasty manti with potatoes. It is only necessary to put a small piece of butter in each, otherwise it will be dry.
Manty is cooked with chicken and pumpkin. Sometimes all these ingredients are mixed. Meat, potatoes and pumpkin are delicious! Manti, which are made from yeast dough, have a very interesting taste. So manti is a field for the implementation of the creative ideas of every housewife!
Manty is a special dish. Perhaps uninitiated people consider them "just big dumplings", but this is far from the case. Not a single Uzbek will agree that manti can be boiled in water and stuffed with minced meat passed through a meat grinder. No, these products are thin dough they cook it exclusively for a couple, and inside they put nothing more than minced lamb meat, certainly flavored with cumin. And a lot of onions. A lot - at least as much as lamb.
After all, it is onions that give manta rays their famous juiciness. They are eaten with their hands, and served with special sauces, which are called so - sauce for manti.
Sauces for manti: a recipe for cooking
And there are a great many of them: for every taste, using a variety of ingredients. Today we will talk about how, for manti.
First option
One of the traditional gravies is katyk sauce. True, in our country this eastern fermented milk product even few people know, not to mention the fact that katyk could be bought somewhere. However, this is not a problem! It is quite forgivable to replace it with a mixture of sour cream with kefir or natural yogurt without additives.
So, sauce for manti from katyk. To get it, you need to mix equal parts not too fatty sour cream with yogurt (kefir), add a lot of finely chopped parsley and cilantro, squeeze a couple of cloves of garlic and season with black and red pepper.
Another sauce - called "Santan"
No less popular is the sauce for manti "Santan". To prepare it, you will need vegetable oil, garlic and red hot pepper. The oil must be thoroughly heated in a small bowl or saucepan. Separately, mix a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste with ground pepper, squeeze a few cloves of garlic into it. Pour hot tomato mixture vegetable oil and insist 15 minutes, then pour it over steaming manti.
The well-known Uzbek sauce
And, of course, Uzbek manti sauce. For him, you need to take a glass of broth, half a glass of tomato juice, 2 onions, a couple of cloves of garlic, as well as vinegar, butter, bay leaf, ground pepper, dill and salt. Such a sauce for manti must be boiled. But first you should finely chop the onion, squeeze the garlic, mix them with tomato juice and, adding broth and bay leaf, bring to a boil.
Simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, then remove from heat, add salt, pepper, chopped dill and let it brew a little under the lid. Then strain the warm sauce, add a piece of butter and a little vinegar and serve.
A spicy option for those who like dishes with pepper
There is another sauce, spicy. For him, you need half a glass of refined spicy adjika and black pepper. Garlic should be cut into thin slices, mixed with a tablespoon of adjika and added sunflower oil. Stir until smooth, pepper and let it brew for 10-15 minutes.
Onion Vinegar Sauce - Easy Option
This, by the way, is the easiest sauce for a dish like manti. We need one onion and 200 grams of vinegar. The onion must be finely chopped.
Then you should send it to marinate in vinegar for about 20 minutes. Then you need to generously sprinkle with herbs and dilute a little with cold water. That's it, the sauce is ready!
mustard sauce
For those who love spicy dishes, we suggest preparing mustard sauce. To create it, we need mustard, olive oil, and herbs. Take the first two ingredients in proportions of 2: 1 (mustard and olive oil). Mix, then you need to add greens and sesame seeds. Next, you need to mix everything thoroughly again.
By the way, a little piece of advice in the end - you can’t dip manti in any sauce. These foods are eaten with the hands. First, they bite the edge, as a result of which a hole is formed, the sauce is very carefully applied to it with a spoon. If there are manti like this, then you can feel the original taste of the dish. Note that meat juice is very appetizing mixed with any sauce.
A small conclusion
Enjoy your meal! We hope you enjoy ours. You can cook them without difficulty, which means that your family will enjoy spicy and sour sauces for manti more than once. Do not be afraid to experiment - this is the main thing!
Dumplings have many nationalities, and differ mainly in the way they are cooked and stuffed. One way or another, meat with dough has been cooked since antiquity in almost all cultures. What could be easier: take some kind of bread and wrap it in it meat stuffing?
The dumplings of each nation have their own special appearance. Closed manti, open Buryat poses, Georgian khinkali similar to a tied bag, Uzbek angular chuchvara, spicy with broth, various Chinese dumplings, a traditional dish in Chinese New Year, tiny European ravioli, Ukrainian and Russian dumplings, Japanese gyoza rice dumplings…
Distant relatives of dumplings, such lazy dumplings, include the traditional Tatar or Kazakh bishbarmak and even unpretentious naval pasta. And this is not a complete list of representatives of the dumpling family.
Most often, at a party, in restaurants, in the form of semi-finished products in stores from the dumpling brothers, we come across our native dumplings, manti and khinkali. Let's dwell on them.
The authors of Russian dumplings are most likely Ural and Siberian tribes. In Permian, pelmen means "ear of dough". Ural and Siberian dumplings are a ritual dish. It was prepared after sacrificing several animals, hence the tradition to combine various types of meat in minced meat - game, beef, lamb, pork. Thousands of dumplings were made on the first snow and stored all winter. Thankfully the frost helped. The supply of dumplings allowed the housewives not to philosophize and not bother with dinner all day. Dumplings - a kind of hot dog of antiquity, fast and tasty. Threw it into boiling water and in five minutes you enjoy a full meal. There are many ways to cook dumplings. They are fried, stewed, baked in pots, served with broth and simply boiled. Any sauces from sour cream to adjika and wine vinegar are acceptable for dumplings.
Of course, it’s more convenient, tastier and one might even say more correctly, eating dumplings with a spoon. So actually this dish was eaten by its creators. Yes, to be honest, they continue to eat, even if these are not dumplings with broth, but ordinary, boiled ones. So that the juice does not spill out onto the dish. However, unfortunately, the rules of etiquette require us to eat dumplings with a fork. They should be taken by the "lobe" of the ear and try to send it into the mouth as a whole. If the dumpling is too big, you will have to abandon the idea of enjoying the broth and divide it into pieces with a fork.
They argue about the origin of the manti, as well as about their brothers described above. Manty is prepared in China, in Central and Central Asia, in Altai, in Buryatia. They say that manti was brought to these parts from China, where dumplings have been made for more than one and a half thousand years. The main difference between manti and Russian dumplings is the presence of vegetables, more often pumpkin, and spices in minced meat. By the way, about minced meat. The most correct manti are prepared not from ground, but minced meat. They mold manti in the form of balls with an open (posture) or closed top. Classic manti cook for a couple. You can, of course, try it in a colander, but in fact there are special pans - mantyshnitsy. They eat manti with their hands. To begin with, they drink the broth by biting the manti, or directly from the neck if the manti are open. Usually sauces are not served with them. But green tea is served.
They eat with a spoon, for example, in Turkish restaurants, small manti with sauce. In some Asian countries, you can order manti with broth, fried manti.
If you ask a Georgian where khinkali came from, he will probably answer that they have always been here, in Georgia. However, historians suggest that they ended up in Georgia along with the Mongols. The times were dark, who can tell now, but one thing is for sure, if the Mongols brought a certain prototype of khinkali to the Caucasus, then what was learned from it in traditional Georgian culture is something of its own, special. Khinkali is only boiled. If you mold the same dough with the same minced meat in a different way and fry it, you will get a distant relative of cheburek, which is more popular in the Crimea than in the Caucasus.
Khinkals in Georgia are treated with special trepidation. Believe it or not, they are loved and eaten more than kebabs. They are not mixed with anything, neither with broths, nor with sauces. They are self sufficient. Minced meat for khinkali is prepared spicy: be sure to add chopped cilantro, sometimes hot capsicum, and suneli hops. If there is no pepper in the stuffing itself, it will certainly be on top, on ready-made khinkals.
It is said that it is difficult to eat five khinkals, but if you master it, after the sixth one opens a second wind. The very process of absorbing khinkali is a whole art. Hot khinkalina is taken by the tail with hands. They bite carefully so as not to pour out and splash the broth from the bag in all directions, and drink the juice. Then they just as carefully eat a bag of minced meat, and lay the tail on a plate. Khinkali is spicy, so they are washed down: or mineral water or red wine.
One of the most famous Asian dishes in the world is manti. There are many recipes for their preparation. More precisely, the cooking principle is the same, but there are a lot of small deviations and varieties of fillings, as well as options for what to serve manti with. Being prominent representatives of the cuisines of many countries and nationalities, they acquire a national flavor most often thanks to the sauces they are served with.
Indeed, how else? The dough for manti is taken the most common, as well as for dumplings. Most often, meat is used as a filling: pork, beef, lamb, but sometimes fish, vegetables and various mixtures of ingredients. Of course, there are various seasonings, onions and spices in the dish. Products for the filling are not crushed in a meat grinder, but chopped finely with a knife. Manti themselves, unlike dumplings, are not boiled in water, but steamed. By the way, this is where their name came from. There is a Chinese word "mantou" (馒头), which translates as "steamed bread". After all, the manti themselves, judging by the legend, were invented in China. True, over the years of traveling the recipe, it has changed in the cuisines of various peoples, and now “steamed bread” can be found both fried and boiled in broth. What are manti served with? This is different for every kitchen too.
What can be served with manti?
Keep in mind that more often manti, unlike dumplings and other similar dishes, is eaten without the use of utensils, with your hands. Sauces and spices are usually not poured into a portion, but served in a separate bowl. Manti are dipped into a gravy boat before use. You can put the sauce inside, biting the dough a little. Often they cook manti without slicing them from above. In the process of cooking, a filling is formed inside the dough in fragrant juice. The sauce is put with a small spoon into the hole in the dough, making the filling even more fragrant. This allows you to use different sauces, experimenting with taste.
Of course, the complexity of the manti sauce will depend on the situation. If you have a semi-finished dish prepared in the refrigerator, and you decide to enjoy it for no reason, just at lunch or as dinner, then it is quite acceptable to get ordinary ketchup or some other ready-made sauce for them.
Simple and quick sauces
Of course, ketchup is the first thing that comes to mind. You can think of a lot of examples of such simple and affordable additions to manti:
Butter.
Ready ketchup can be replaced with mashed tomato.
A mixture of sour cream with ketchup or ketchup with mayonnaise.
Soy sauce.
Other prepared sauces, spicy or sour.
Such examples can be listed for a very long time. All of them are delicious and loved in their own way. But if you decide to cook manti as holiday dish If you want to feel the beauty of manti cooked with your own hands and enjoy the dish to the fullest, use one of the more complex servings, choosing the sauce according to your mood and situation.
Popular sauce for manti santan
Santan is what manti with meat is served with very often, flavored vegetable oil. This sauce is often called Almaty. They are usually watered with manti when serving. It is easy to do, but takes some time.
To prepare Santana, take:
150 grams of vegetable oil. More suitable refined, odorless. Added spices will add flavor to it.
Prepare garlic - 8 cloves.
Tomato paste - 1 tablespoon.
Hot red pepper, finely chopped or coarsely ground - 1 tablespoon.
The preparation of the sauce must begin at least an hour before the planned serving of the dish.
Heat the prepared red pepper in a pan without oil, fry a little, controlling the process, until a bright aroma appears.
Mix the prepared peppers in a bowl with tomato paste and minced garlic.
Heat the oil well in a frying pan and pour into a bowl with the prepared fragrant mixture.
Mix everything and leave to infuse for at least an hour. The ingredients that have settled to the bottom will give the oil its color and aroma.
No less popular sauce - chakarap
Take a pound of tomatoes and chop them as small as possible.
Two sweet onions (white ones are more suitable) and 3-4 cloves of garlic, peel, chop and add to the bowl with tomatoes.
You will need meat broth - 200 grams. It needs to be poured into the sauce.
Spices (a pinch each): red pepper, black pepper, cumin and a little salt. All this also needs to be added to the dishes with the sauce and mix.
Leave to infuse for at least 30 minutes.
Tomato sauce for manti
Less "oriental" tomato sauce without specific seasonings:
The tomato can be grated on a coarse grater, so you can get a more uniform consistency of the sauce.
Grind a couple of tablespoons of herbs to taste. It can be the usual dill or parsley.
Add two cloves of crushed garlic, salt and mix the finished sauce.
Vinegar sauce
When choosing what to serve manti with, various vinegar mixtures are not the last in popularity. Here is an example of a simple but very tasty vinegar sauce that will give an extraordinary taste to mantas when added inside through a bitten hole.
Dilute ordinary vinegar with water in such a proportion that it can be eaten.
Add some black pepper and paprika. Sauce with excellent aroma is ready.
onion-vinegar
When choosing what to serve manti on the table with, pay attention to this option. Sauce making is an elementary process. Finely chop the onion, pour a small amount of vinegar and leave to marinate for 30 minutes or more. Before serving, dilute with a small amount of boiled water.
sour cream sauce
What other sauce is served with manti? Here is an example of the simplest sour cream sauce. Mix 100 grams of sour cream, two chopped garlic cloves and a spoonful of chopped dill.
A plump woman is walking along the street, a beggar approaches her:
- Madam, I haven't eaten anything for five days...
- Eh, I would have your will!
Yes, I would also complain about the lack of will if I were offered delicious, juicy, hot manti!
Manti, mantou or buuz, poses - traditional meat dish peoples of Central and Central Asia, Turkey, Mongolia, Korea, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and Crimea. The word manty, borrowed by the Russian language from the Turkic, comes, presumably, from the Chinese "mantou", "stuffed head", or, as a homonym, "barbarian's head".
The last names, of course, are not entirely appetizing, and we will be closer to our native land, calling our dish "manti" as our parents and grandparents called them.
Before we start making manti, we will choose which manti we will cook. There are many options - from form to content. From size to method of preparation.
For example:
kava manta
Kava is a pumpkin that is used as a filling in equal proportions with lamb. Ready for a couple. A variety of kava manta is hoshan, fried manti. Such manti are first fried in vegetable oil until golden brown, and then they are placed in a pressure cooker until cooked. This method of cooking allows you to get rid of the harmful substances formed during frying, and at the same time leaves the taste of the fried product.
Jusai manta
Ready for a couple. The jusai plant is used as a filling. This is such a branchy fragrant onion, a perennial herbaceous plant of the Onion family, which has all the properties of onions and garlic. Leaves are used for food, which have a unique onion-garlic taste. All parts of the plant are edible.
Can be used with lamb or alone.
Boldurgan manta
Ready for a couple. This dish uses yeast dough. Manti are obtained "lush", that is, "boldurgan". As a filling, either only meat (mutton) or meat together with dzhusai is used. And yet, they say that such a yeast dough is prepared in winter.
So, let's consider that we have made our choice and our relatives, our favorite ordinary Uzbek manti, will show off and enjoy eating on our table today.
Let's start with the filling.
Most often, minced meat is prepared from lamb, but options are possible from a mixture of different types of meat. Variations with a mixture of pumpkin and meat are popular; vegetarian - from pumpkin, potatoes, mushrooms.
Instead of pumpkin, carrots or other vegetables can be used, which, when boiled, can give a little juice for juiciness and softness of the meat. In the coastal regions of China, even shrimp is used as the main component of minced meat. Some use pork, camel meat, goat meat, poultry in minced meat. Who likes what or who is used to what.
The most important point in preparing the filling for manti is not to use a meat grinder or blender. Only a sharp knife and hands can cut the meat with high quality, while removing everything unsuitable for manti. But be warned - these trimmings are wonderful stock material! It's better not to throw anything away.
The meat is finely chopped with a knife into cubes, fat is also cut and onion, which is taken in a ratio of 1: 2. The more onions, the juicier the filling will be. The main spice for manti is zira, salt and black pepper, we cannot do without them. The remaining spices - cumin, red pepper, garlic, marjoram, coriander and basil are added to taste, making the minced meat somehow especially tasty and fragrant.
We begin to cut the meat into strips and chop into squares. Minced meat in manti should be crumbly, so it is chopped with a knife, and not with kitchen hatchets. A meat grinder or food processor will not work, because they knead the meat at the same time and make the minced meat more sticky. Chop the fat tail fat with a knife into pieces of 0.5 cm. Cut the onion into thin half rings. You can roast it for a variety of flavors. For traditional manti, a lot of onions are cut - it is onions and lard that should form that delicious broth in manti, and only thinly cut onions release juice during heating.
Mix onion, meat and lard. The filling of manti should be juicy. In order for the onion to give juice, the minced meat must be kneaded by hand. If you don't want your hand to smell, put on a thin rubber glove. Slightly crush the minced meat to remove excess air and the meat and onions fit snugly together. Leave the filling to marinate for 30 minutes.
Now let's make the dough.
Unleavened dough for manti is made from water, salt and flour, sometimes with the addition of eggs. To obtain a soft and elastic dough that does not tear, even if it is rolled out too thin, water and flour are taken in proportions of 1: 2. 1 egg is enough for 500 g of flour, and if you want the dough to be especially tender, water can be replaced with milk. Some housewives first bring the milk to a boil, and then add it to the dough, since the choux pastry retains the liquid inside the manti well during the cooking process.
Mix salt and water. You can add yolks. Knead the dough well and make a ball out of it. We wrap it in a film and put it to "rest" for 30-40 minutes. If the room is hot, it is better to put it in the refrigerator. If the temperature is medium - leave it on the table.
We cut the settled dough ball in half and roll one half into a circle with a layer of 1-2 mm. Wrap the remaining dough in cling film and set aside. Ideally, the dough should be so thin that the filling is visible, since the art of making manti is judged primarily by the thickness of the dough. It is important not to overdo it, otherwise the dough will tear. We cut it into squares from 10 to 15 cm. Place 1 tablespoon of filling in the center of each square. We connect the sharp corners from opposite sides of the square cake from above, and pinch the new corners formed at the bottom with each other on the sides. Neighboring corners of a quadrangular asterisk stick together in pairs, forming ears.
Some housewives form bundles of dough, cut into pieces, roll each piece into a ball and roll it thinly with a rolling pin. The diameter of the resulting pancake should be at least 10 cm. The filling is placed in the middle, the circle of dough is lifted by the edges from opposite sides and connected, the same is done with the other edges of the pancake. The corners are pinched diagonally, and the manti are ready. In Asian cuisine, another technique for sculpting manti is used - the filling is placed in the middle of the pancake, then the dough is lifted from three sides and beautifully connected.
There are many forms of manti - choose the ones that seem the most simple and cute to you. Before cooking, manti is sometimes left for 10 minutes, covered with a towel, and only then they begin to cook.
Manty, as we know, is not boiled in water, like dumplings. They are cooked only for a couple, and most often specialized kitchen utensils are used for this purpose. It consists of two pans with a lid, placed on top of each other. Water is poured into the lower pan, and the bottom of the upper pan resembles a colander through which steam penetrates.
Before starting cooking, it is necessary to grease the sheets from the mantle with melted butter, or you can grease the bottoms of the manti themselves or simply dip it in it. We lay the manti on the sheets of the pressure cooker, but not too close to each other.
They do the same with frozen manti, and they do not need to be thawed before cooking. Usually the cooking process takes about 40-50 minutes.
While our mantyshki are being cooked and steamed, we can set the table with various pickles, prepare salads and sauces, which are certainly important attributes when serving.
Appetizing manti are poured melted before serving butter, sprinkled with black pepper and fragrant herbs. This dish is served with sour cream, mayonnaise, horseradish, mustard, spicy tomato or yogurt sauce, vegetable salad or meat broth. A popular seasoning is sour milk (katyk) or fried onions, black and red pepper. In addition, mint, basil and other seasonings are added.
Uyghur manti are eaten with "lasjan" - red pepper seasoning seasoned with vegetable oil. Also popular is "cobra" - a seasoning made from tomatoes, hot peppers and garlic.
Manty is best eaten hot, enjoying their bright oriental taste and aroma. This is a real treat for lovers of Asian cuisine. But like dumplings, we can reheat or fry the manti in a frying pan with butter until golden brown the next day. Believe me, it is very, very tasty.
Of course, manti is one of the most delicious and favorite types of food in Uzbekistan. Manty is not just a tradition. Manty is a feast, it is a great pastime among family and friends. This is a great opportunity to prepare for the future before receiving any guests, including unexpected ones. This dish can be a great hot treat for any holiday table.
Bon appetit!
BELA FELDMAN