Turkish recipe | The Tromp Queen COOKS!

When we visited Turkey a couple of years ago, one of the meals our two teenagers enjoyed most was a big dish of Manti. According to a wonderful Turkish cookbook I have,

Manti are the ravioli of Anatolia. They are admittedly a little fussy to make, as the dough is to be rolled thinly and cut into fine squares, filled with a smidgeon of meat and sealed into neat little parcels. But the effort is well worth it – they taste delicious with the traditional distinctive yogurt, garlic and herbed butter topping.

For our young Turkish niece and nephew, Manti is one of their favorite comfort foods — it is their macaroni and cheese.

After looking through my lovely Turkish cookbook, my daughter asked if we could try making homemade Manti. We go the ingredients and dove into the process. My daughter and I made the dough, rolled it as thinly as we could then cut it into 1 1/2″ squares. We stuffed each square with meat and pinched the corners shut into the special four corner shaped little packets.

Image by thebittenword via Flickr CC license

This took FOREVER! After all that the only thing left to do is boil them for a few minutes until they are cooked through (and float in the boiling water) and cook the simple yogurt sauce that goes on top.

Restaurant worker making tiny manti pasta in Istanbul. The best manti originated in Kayseri and is filled with minced lamb. Image by Phil Norton via Flickr CC license

We came to the conclusion that using meat-filled tortellini would make everything so much easier and that it would taste essentially the same. So that is what I’m suggesting you do, too. Our homemade version was delicious, but we do not think the time and effort involved made a huge difference from buying ready made tortellini (except for the shape, which most Americans won’t know about anyway).

So — buy enough meat-filled tortellini for your family and cook it as directed on the package.

Manti; Image by Sean Munson via Flickr CC license

For the Manti taste, you definitely need the sauce. Here’s how to make it:

Melt 1/4 c. butter (or use extra virgin olive oil) in a skillet.
Add 2 or 3 (or more to taste) cloves of minced garlic (cook briefly), then add 2 t. paprika, 1 t. dried red chili flakes (or use 1/2 t. is you like less spice). The recipe says to add some dried mint (2 t.) but we didn’t have it that way in Turkey so I didn’t add that.

To serve:
Top each serving of hot, freshly cooked meat-filled tortellini (our Manti substitute) with a large dollop of plain Greek yogurt and a generous drizzle of the flavored butter (0r olive oil) mixture. Stir to combine as desired and season with salt and pepper to taste. Top with grated parmesan cheese.

Serve with a salad and warm, crusty bread. YUM!!

You could use cheese tortellini to make this a vegetarian dish. You could also use (meat-filled or cheese-filled) ravioli instead of tortellini if you want bigger bites. You might need to make more sauce if you use ravioli, though.

Ingredients needed:
Enough meat-filled tortellini for your folks and hot boiling salted water in which to cook it
2 c. plain Greek yogurt (full fat is better than non-fat for this dish)
1/2 c. butter or olive oil
several cloves of garlic
paprika
dried red chili flakes
(optional: dried or fresh mint)
parmesan cheese

The lovely Turkish cookbook is called Turkey: More than 100 Recipes with Tales from the Road by Leanne Kitchen.

Making manti, turkish dumplings, as seen in the February 2008 issue of Martha Stewart Living. Each dumpling is filled with lamb, onion and parsley. They are served with a yogurt sauce and melted butter.

Read the recipe and all about how to make Manti here at thebittenword.com.

Image by Hui via Flickr CC License.

You can have a taste of Turkey without ever leaving your home town!

In honor of our relatives from Turkey who are visiting us right now, I’m posting another of my favorite things to make and eat: Spinach Börek, a Turkish recipe.

Turkish borek made with spinach, feta and goat cheese.

This recipe came to me from my sister-in-law, Çağla. This is one of my teenaged son’s very favorite things to eat. He often requests it for his birthday or for other special meals.

Ingredients:
1 pkg. filo dough, thawed
Fresh spinach, about 10 oz. — I use the pre-washed organic baby spinach that comes in 10 oz. boxes. If you use fresh, wash it thoroughly and remove the large stems. Tear it into smaller pieces. I have used Swiss Chard with good success, too.
8 oz. feta cheese – I buy the chunk kind. It is less expensive and tastes better.
5 to 8 oz. goat cheese – If you have never eaten goat cheese, please DO try it!
3 or 4 green onions, thinly sliced (or any onion, finely chopped, to taste)
½ t. salt or to taste
¼ t. black pepper or to taste

Brushing liquid: Combine these ingredients, mix/whisk/stir together. Have a brush handy for later
3 eggs, beaten
2 to 3 T. olive oil
¼ c. milk

Options:
Cagla says you can use cream cheese, cottage cheese or mozzarella. I never have.
I sprinkle on some Penzey’s Turkish seasoning and/or some dill.

Procedure:
Heat oven to 350. Spray two cookie sheets w/ Pam or use parchment paper.

Clear a large work area. I cover my space w/ waxed paper, using about 4 or 5 long strips placed side by side and overlapped slightly. Most filo packages have two smaller individually wrapped packages inside them. Open one of these packages. Divide the filo into four roughly equal stacks, with about 6 or so sheets in each stack. Use it all. I lay the four stacks on the waxed paper with the one short end of the dough near me and the long side perpendicular to me. Brush each filo dough stack w/ the egg/olive oil/milk mixture. Cover the surface but don’t go crazy. Work kind of quickly because this dough dries out quickly. Open the other little package of dough and divide into four stacks again, placing each one on one of the egg soaked stacks. I push down on each stack to kind of fuse the layers together a bit. You can brush more of the egg mixture on the top if you wish. I don’t always do that, though, if I’m in a rush. So you should have a stack of 6 sheets of dough, egg mixture layer, and six more sheets of dough. You should have four of these. This is your foundation for the next step.

Fresh Spinach (Photo credit: artizone)

Filling:
Divide the spinach into four roughly equal parts and cover each filo stack with one part of the spinach. Try to keep the spinach within the edges of the dough, but this is usually a hopeless task. Do the same with the onion, the feta, the goat cheese and the salt and pepper. Sprinkle and crumble away. Add any other seasonings you think need to be in there (dill? Turkish seasoning? It is up to you).

Feta Cheese (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: Goat’s milk cheese (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Rolling:
Starting at the shorter end of one stack, begin to roll it up (like a jelly roll, a quilt that has been quilted or an enchilada) brushing the filo dough that appears from the bottom with the egg mixture as you go. Don’t forget to brush it as you, or your rolls will be very dry and not crispy at all. Don’t ask me how I know this. You will end up with a cylindrical roll that hopefully has the spinach and cheese all enclosed inside it. Mine are usually kind of fat. 🙂 You can squish the spinach quite a bit since it cooks down.

Baking:
Carefully move each roll to the cookie sheets you prepared earlier. If you didn’t do that, either ask for help or go wash your hands since you are covered in goat cheese and other stuff. Bake the rolls at 350 for about 40 minutes until they are golden brown and crispy.

Serving:
We usually cut each roll into 2, 3 or 4 pieces depending on what else we are having with it. You can eat it hot, room temp or even cold (though I never have eaten it cold).

Gözleme, Turkish specialty, Applying the stuffing (in this case: sheep cheese, spinach, and herbs) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The photo above shows a similar Turkish food. The dough is different and the dish is also cooked differently. The filling of the spinach borek are very much the same, though, as the fillings shown in the photo.