Uzbek manti - a classic traditional dish of Uzbek cuisine, steamed. The cooking technology allows you to save all the valuable substances of the product components, making the dish easily digestible, despite the relatively high calorie content.
Varieties of dishes
Uzbek manti, contrary to popular belief, come in all sorts of different kinds. In the ordinary sense, not knowing the nuances of someone else's cuisine, we think that this dish is prepared only with minced meat. In fact, this is not so. Manty is also made with meat and radish, pumpkin, lard and sugar, potatoes and many other products.
By the way, manti is a traditional national dish of many peoples of Asia. It is considered its own in Turkey, Korea, Mongolia.
As a rule, manti is made from small minced meat with onions in thin pastry. The preparation itself takes place in the mantle bowl or mantle cooker. You can not do without such a device, since the dish is processed exclusively by steam.
In different recipes, add pumpkin, fat tail fat to the minced meat . Sometimes manty is fried, but only after steaming.
Cooking dough
How to make Uzbek manti? A recipe with photos will help you figure out the issue.
The first thing to do is choose a good meat for the dish. Lamb leg (or lamb leg, it is less fat) is ideal. Next, you need to separate the meat from the bone, cut it into thin strips, and then chop into small pieces. The smaller the minced meat, the better. We will not grind it in a meat grinder, as we usually do in the preparation of our dumplings.
Then take the onion, peel and chop finely. The ratio of meat and onion should be 1: 1. Next, you should well salt and pepper our filling. Stuff the minced meat thoroughly with our hands and let it stand. In the meantime, we ourselves will be preparing the dough.
Knead it as follows. A teaspoon of salt is soluble in a glass of warm water, and then add a pound of flour. Pour a tablespoon of vegetable oil and two eggs there. And now we’ll start to mix it all, adding flour. The dough will turn out cool, elastic and at the same time will not stick to your hands. Just say that you have to work hard. Knead the dough for at least fifteen to twenty minutes (periodically add flour). First, it should be kneaded in a basin. As soon as it gets a homogeneous consistency, you can put it on a board sprinkled with flour, and continue to knead.
Finishing the process, you should drop the dough about ten times on the table, after which we cover it with dishes and leave. It should lie down for at least half an hour, after which it will need to be kneaded again. Only then can you begin to sculpt.
How to sculpt manti?
The dough must be separated in small pieces, then rolled into sausages and cut into small circles with a thickness of not more than 2.5 centimeters. Each slice is dipped into flour and rolled into a thin circle with a rolling pin. In each such pancake, you should put one and a half tablespoons of minced meat. The amount of filling depends on the size of the circle. Minced meat should not be small, but you should not overdo it, otherwise the dough will simply disperse.
It should be noted that the Uzbek manti are sculpted in different ways. Although this is not so important, since the modeling option does not affect the taste. Before you put the finished manti in the mantle, they should be dipped in vegetable oil so that they do not stick to the bottom of the dishes during cooking.
It is better to boil water in advance, and put the manti already on the heated boiling dishes. Cooking will take about half an hour. If all the manti did not fit immediately, then the rest should be sent to the refrigerator or even to the freezer.
From the mantle bowl, the finished dish should be removed carefully so that the dough does not tear and fat does not leak. That, in fact, is all, the Uzbek manti are ready. The recipe for cooking is not very complicated. In part, it resembles our dumplings.
Manty cooked in broth
How to cook Uzbek manti, we figured out, now let's look at several other recipes. We have already mentioned that sometimes it is possible to cook such a dish not only for a couple, but also to cook. Uzbek manti, boiled in broth, is also very tasty.
Ingredients for the dough:
- Flour - ½ kg.
- Milk - ½ cup.
- One egg.
- Salt.
Ingredients for the filling:
- Meat - 1 kg.
- Onions - ½ kg.
- Fat tail fat (it can be replaced with ordinary fat) - 160 g.
- Pepper, salt.
- A glass of sour milk for refueling.
- A bunch of cilantro.
To prepare the egg, beat it with milk in a foamy liquid, dissolve the salt. On this basis, the dough should be kneaded. Then roll it into small circles. We mold mantas in any way. Stuffing can also be made the way you like. It is not necessary to adhere to traditional recipes. When manti are stuck, they need to be boiled in meat broth. The principle is the same as when cooking dumplings. As soon as the manti emerge to the surface, they should be boiled for another five minutes, then taken out and put into deep plates, filled with broth and sour milk with greens.
Manti with sugar and fat tail fat
Uzbek mantas, the recipe for which we want to offer you, perhaps you will find it rather strange. But actually it turns out a very tasty dish, it's just a little unusual for us.
Ingredients:
- Flour - 1/2 kg.
- Salt.
- Yeast - 35 g.
- Water - ½ cup.
- Fat tail fat - ½ kg.
- Sugar - 160 g.
- Sour milk - 320 g.
Yeast must be dissolved in water and, adding salt, knead the dough. Cover it with a towel and put in a warm place. Next, roll the finished dough into separate cakes, stuff them with a mixture of chopped fat tail fat and sugar. Such Uzbek manti are steamed for about forty-five minutes. Ready-made, they are served with broth and sour milk. Even in the photo, the Uzbek manti look very appetizing.
Manti with pumpkin
What do you think with what else you can cook Uzbek manti? The recipe for cooking with a photo in our article will probably surprise you a little. The fact is that in traditional Uzbek cuisine manti is cooked even with pumpkin. Just because of ignorance, we have formed a stereotype that this dish is exclusively meat, but this is not so.
The dough in this recipe is prepared, as always. But the filling will be unusual.
Ingredients for Stuffing:
- A kilogram of peeled pumpkin.
- Onion - 5 heads.
- Ground pepper.
- Salt.
- Sheep fat - 120 g.
The filling is prepared as follows. A good ripe pumpkin is selected, peeled and peeled, and then grated or cut into small cubes. Shredded onions, lard, pepper, salt are added to it. All the stuffing mixes well. If your pumpkin is not very sweet, you can add a spoonful of sugar.
Manty with pumpkin is also being prepared for a couple. Serving on the table, you can pour them with sour cream.
Fried manti
Let's talk about how to make fried Uzbek manti. Cooking them, in general, will not differ in any way, except for the way of bringing to readiness. Finished products must first be lightly deep-fried so that a golden crust appears. This is done so that the dough itself becomes crispy, but the mince remains moist. For this reason, manty still needs to be added. In the manty dish they will be cooked for another forty minutes. You can fry manti with any filling.
Manti with pickled meat
The Uzbek manti is very tasty (the recipe with a photo is given in the article) with pickled meat. The bottom line is that for the filling you should not take the usual pulp of a ram, but pickled. Such an insignificant nuance greatly changes the taste of the dish. Such manti will certainly be appreciated by lovers of pickled meat.
Sheep meat should be cut into slices, as for barbecue. Next, put it together with fat tail fat in enameled dishes. You should also add chopped onion, spices, salt and grape vinegar. All ingredients are thoroughly mixed and sent to the refrigerator for three hours. During this time, the meat has time to marinate.
Next, the manti begins with such a filling and is boiled in the mantle. They are served with broth and sour milk.
Manti with potatoes
Potatoes need to be peeled and cut into cubes or straws. It is necessary to add lamb fat (can be replaced with cracklings), ground pepper, salt and ghee. Next, manti are prepared on the basis of this filling.
Cooking nuances
Manty is traditionally made from unleavened dough. It should be very thin. However, sometimes yeast dough options are also prepared. In principle, you can start manti with anything, adding a wide variety of spices. For the filling, you can use meat, vegetables, cottage cheese, or you can even combine these ingredients. But the way to prepare the meal remains unchanged. Manty steamed. In Asia, such special dishes are called cascans. Well, for cooking we can use a modern invention called a pressure cooker. In fact, this is a multi-level pan in which there are special openings for steam. And in the lowest tank is water, which, boiling, gives the very steam we need for cooking.
In principle, you can use an ordinary double boiler for cooking. Manty from this will not get worse.
Filling for the dish
But as for the filling, then, as you can see, the meat does not go through the meat grinder, as we are used to, it should be finely chopped with the bacon with a knife. It is believed that manti with minced meat is much tastier. You will not believe it, but it really is.
Traditionally, the dish is prepared with meat filling. To do this, you can take lamb, pork, beef, chicken. In principle, several varieties can be mixed. A prerequisite is the addition of turmeric fat to the filling. In our conditions, it can be replaced with ordinary fat. This is done in order to make the dish juicy and fat.
In addition, the onion should certainly be put in the filling. It gives juiciness to the dish. In Asia, it is customary to add vegetable slices and potatoes to any minced meat. Such additional ingredients absorb excess juice, preventing the dough from breaking.
An ideal component is pumpkin, which gives the meat a very peculiar flavor.
Manti can have a completely different shape: square, triangular, round.
In addition, like any Uzbek dish, manti is prepared with spices. In addition to the usual red and black pepper, caraway, garlic, and zira are also added. And on top of the finished dish is sprinkled with green cilantro, dill, parsley. As a sauce in all recipes, sour milk is certainly used.