Every housewife who masters the recipes of Central Asian and Eastern cuisine should know how to cook manti . Moreover, they consider it their national dish in Siberia. Manti are considered close relatives of traditional Georgian khinkali or Russian dumplings. Outwardly, they are very similar, but they are prepared in a completely different way.
What is the difference between manti?
Since almost anyone can cook manti today, it is important to understand what is the fundamental difference between this dish and others like it.
The main feature is that the forcemeat must be made of lamb, and the dough is rolled out as thinly as possible. The so-called mantou is cooked from it, as the Chinese often call it.
In the literal translation from Chinese, this concept translates as "stuffed head." After all, in the end, manti in size turns out to be much more dumplings. If you know how to cook manti, you can always set the festive table in Asian countries, surprising all guests.
You can continue to create culinary masterpieces at home, delighting relatives and friends.
Secrets of delicious manti
There are several secrets that will tell you how to cook manti deliciously and quickly so that everyone around you is satisfied.
Firstly, the dough for them should be fresh, it is made on the basis of salt, water and flour, adding eggs. To make it elastic, soft and not torn, water with flour must be taken in proportions of one to two. Approximately 500 grams of flour accounts for one chicken egg, this should be enough to make it work. If you want the dough to turn out tender, then you can pour milk instead of water, it will turn out much tastier. This is another secret how to make manti dough tasty and fast.
On the advice of some experienced culinary experts, milk must first be brought to a boil, and only then flour should be introduced into it. Another secret of the correct test for manti is to knead it for at least 20 minutes. To do this on your own, of course, will not be easy, so you can use a bread machine.
Leave the ready-made dough for an hour, covering it with a towel. Now it’s no secret for you how to make manti dough, so you can regularly please your loved ones with this dish.
Manti filling
In the classic recipe for how to cook tasty and juicy manti, lamb is necessarily used, to which interior or even better fat tail fat is added. True, individual kitchens have their own special traditions associated with this dish.
For example, the Chinese often make minced pork, kneading it with goat, beef, horse meat or camel. And if you happen to try manti in the coastal regions of this country, then shrimp will most likely be there in the minced meat.
Today in Russia, mincemeat for manti is prepared from a variety of meat. It can be lamb, and pork, and beef, and chicken. And the interior and fat tail fat, which is not so easy to get in Russia, is usually replaced with smoked or pork salted lard. The latter, by the way, is highly discouraged in Asian cuisine.
With fat, which helps make manti tasty, tender and juicy, the main thing is not to overdo it. For one kilogram of meat should take no more than 150 grams of fat. It can be added in the process of molding manti.
Another condition for proper filling is not to use a blender or meat grinder. The meat must be chopped into small cubes, and then mixed with fat and onions. The more onions you have, the juicier the filling will be.
The main spice, without which you cannot learn how to cook tasty and juicy manti, is zira. But salt and other spices are added exclusively to taste. Especially tasty and piquant minced meat will make coriander, marjoram and basil.
You can decorate minced meat with the help of mushrooms, carrots, pumpkins, potatoes. The latter also absorbs excess moisture, preventing the test from bursting. Now you know exactly how to cook the manti.
Sculpt manti
There are many ways to sculpt manti. Firstly, already settled dough must be rolled out in a layer about one or two millimeters thick. It is believed that you have obtained manti if the dough is so thin that you can see the filling through it. Just the ability to make the finest dough, contains the main skill in the preparation of this dish.
At the same time, the line is very thin, because you need to make sure that the dough does not tear. The dough is divided into squares of about 15 by 15 centimeters, and spread in the middle of a tablespoon of filling. Opposite corners of the cake are interconnected, and the corners are plucked on the sides.
Among culinary specialists, there are other ways of making dough. For example, some form bundles or cut the dough into pieces, each of which is rolled into a separate ball, and then rolled out with a rolling pin. The result is a pancake with a diameter of about 10 centimeters, in the middle of which the filling is laid out.
There is another way in Asian tradition. The filling is laid out in the very middle of the pancake, and the dough rises from three sides, connecting beautifully. So, in Uzbekistan, manti is crisscrossed, and the ends are fixed as on a postal envelope.
Manti in a slow cooker
Ideally, manti is cooked in a special bowl, which is called a mantle. But if it was not at hand, you can get by with the more familiar kitchen equipment. For example, make this a delicious and satisfying dish in a slow cooker.
We need the ingredients to make the mince and dough. For the test, take:
- 3 cups flour;
- glass of water;
- a teaspoon of salt.
Stuffing is prepared from the following components:
- 500 grams of meat (if you do not welcome lamb, it is best to take beef and pork in half);
- 3 onions;
- milk;
- ground black pepper;
- salt.
Cooking process
Manty in a slow cooker are prepared simply and quickly enough. First, prepare the minced meat. To do this, mix the ground meat with onions, pepper and salt, with the help of milk we bring it to the necessary consistency.
Knead the dough, and then roll it into small sausages, cut into identical pieces of a sufficiently large size. We roll them into cakes and spread the minced meat.
Close the manti, connecting the ends as already described. Pour three glasses of water into the multicooker bowl, wait until it boils. To make this happen faster, you can immediately pour hot water, so you can save time.
Lightly grease the steaming bowl with vegetable oil and spread the manti on it. We turn on the slow cooker in the "Steam cooking" mode. Manti are cooked in this way for about 50 minutes.
Classic recipe in a mantovar
To try a real, classic recipe for this dish, you must definitely learn how to cook manti in a mantovar.
Since we are preparing classic manti, then we will stop the choice on lamb. In general, for this recipe we will need:
- one and a half kilograms of lamb;
- 5 onions;
- 300 grams of pumpkin;
- egg;
- a kilogram of wheat flour;
- 200 grams of tail fat;
- half a teaspoon of salt;
- 200 ml of water;
- vegetable oil;
- ground black pepper to taste.
How to get real manti?
It is advised to start with a test for manti. They make it on the most ordinary countertop or in a fairly deep bowl. Water is poured into the sifted flour, salted and broken egg. Mix thoroughly until a homogeneous mass is formed. From it you need to knead the elastic dough. It will take about a quarter of an hour.
Then we wrap the ball from the dough in cling film and send it to the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. In parallel, we begin to make the filling. We wash the lamb under cold running water. Finely chop or pass through a meat grinder.
Grind the fat tail, clean and finely chop the onions, mix the meat with lard and onion in a deep bowl. Pepper and salt to taste, and then mix again and beat the minced meat directly with your hands.
Now you can sculpt manti. We take out the dough from the refrigerator, remove the film and divide the ball into several large enough pieces. Each of them is rolled into a separate sausage, and then cut into equal pieces. Now we roll each separate piece of dough into a thin layer in the shape of a square.
We lay out the filling in the very center of this layer and wrap the manti, connecting all four corners directly above the filling. At this time, pour water into the mantle cooker and bring it to a boil. Do not forget to grease the base of the pressure cooker with any vegetable oil. This is necessary so that the dough does not stick to it. Put the prepared manti portioned in water and cook for about 40 minutes until the dough is completely cooked.
Ready manti is usually served on plates with sour cream sauce.
How to cook manti in the microwave?
No matter how surprising it may seem, they cook manty even in the microwave. Those who have tried say that it turns out very tasty, and most importantly, no special kitchen utensils are required.
For 4 servings, we need this amount of ingredients:
- 300 grams of pork;
- 4 onions;
- a glass of flour;
- 2 chicken eggs;
- 50 grams of fat.
Step by step recipe
To prepare the filling, finely chop the pork, onion and lard. We mix these ingredients by adding salt, black pepper and your favorite spices.
For the dough, break one egg in a bowl, fill with half a glass of cold water, sprinkle with salt. Pour in flour, stirring constantly to make the dough cool. Now we knead it with our hands for about 20 minutes or, as already mentioned, use a bread machine for this.
When the dough comes up, divide it into parts, roll out of each cake with a diameter of 10 centimeters. We spread a teaspoon of the filling on each piece of dough and wrap the manti.
To make manti tasty in the microwave, everyone needs to be dipped in vegetable oil, and then put on a wire rack. Pour water into a separate pan and place it exactly under the grate. Turn on the microwave for a quarter of an hour. After this, the manti is ready, they can be served to the table.