Persia and the Caucasus · Volume 60, The Palaw, the Dumpling and the Winter Meat
Mantu
Afghanistan, every community, with Kabul's cooks the acknowledged experts
Illustration
- Time
- 2 hours 20
- Researched
- Researched from 55 sources in the brief
Mantu are steamed dumplings of minced lamb and onion, set on garlic yoghurt under a lentil and tomato sauce and dried mint. Hazara, Pashtun, Uzbek, Tajik and Kabuli cooks all make them, and the Hazara writer who lists them as his own says the Kabulis excel at it. They are steamed in tiered vessels: a boiled mantu is a soft one.
As tradition built it
Serves a table. About 2 hours, 20 minutes of it steaming.
Ingredients
The tradition's method, with the ingredients named. Quantities follow as we verify them.
- flour, for the dough
- water, for the dough
- salt, for the dough
- a little oil, for the dough
- 450g lamb, minced twice
- 4 medium onions, finely chopped
- garlic, for the filling
- black pepper
- ground turmeric
- a little ground cumin
- 240ml coriander leaves, chopped, in at the end
- parsley, chopped, in at the end
- 240ml yoghurt
- 1 tsp salt, for the yoghurt
- a pinch garlic, for the yoghurt
- 400g split lentils, half cooked, for the sauce
- 1 small onion, for the sauce
- garlic, for the sauce
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 3 tomatoes, for the sauce
- to taste dried mint
Method
- Make a plain dough of the flour, water, salt and a little oil, knead it smooth and rest it half an hour.
- Mix the lamb with the onion, garlic and spice, and the coriander and parsley last.
- For the sauce, half cook the split lentils, then cook them down with the onion, garlic, tomatoes and tomato paste.
- Roll the dough thin, cut it in squares, and fill and pinch each into a dumpling with the top gathered.
- Steam them in oiled tiers over boiling water for 20 minutes.
- Spread the yoghurt, beaten with garlic and salt, over a platter, set the dumplings on it, spoon the lentil sauce over, and finish with dried mint rubbed between the palms.
Notes
The lamb, onion, coriander and yoghurt are Humaira Ghilzai's, from Afghan Culture Unveiled (2014); the lentil sauce is Mahnaz Angury's, from SBS Food, for six. Both cooks use bought wrappers, so the dough, the garlic and the spice have no cook's weights yet.
What a modern chef changes
A wrapper you can see through, and the sauces made separately
Rungs 3 and 5
Method
- Roll the dough through a pasta machine to its second thinnest setting and cut 9 centimetre squares; a hand rolled wrapper is thicker than a mantu wants.
- Chill the filling an hour so the fat holds and the onion's water stays in the dumpling.
- Make the lentil sauce the day before and reheat it; it thickens and the tomato loses its edge.
- Strain the yoghurt to chakah first, so it stays on the platter and does not run.