Mantu Afghan Dish Miami FL

If you’re looking for something exotic that you can serve either as a finger food or as a main dish, you should look at the variety of Afghan food available on the internet. The Mantu Afghan dish has won the hearts of many individuals who particularly love having Middle Eastern cuisine in their homes. The cooking tips and recipes of most Afghan dishes online are easy and comprehensible enough even for beginners to follow. You can be sure to serve this meat dumpling dish to your guests without much effort. This Mantu dish can be prepared in less than an hour.

Ingredients

The ingredients for this dish are very easy to find in your local grocery store. The hardest ones to look for will probably be the spices, and depending on your taste buds, you can choose to do without them.

For the dough:

1 cup of white flour

2 cups plain flour

1 ½ table spoons of white flour

2 tablespoons of olive oil or vegetable oil

Salt to taste

As a substitute, you can also use wanton wrappers if this is easily available in the store.

For the meat filling:

One pound of ground meat

Ground pepper

Ground cumin

Ground coriander

2 cups of chopped onion

For the dip:

1 cup fresh yoghurt

Garlic

Mint

For the toppings

Yoghurt mix

Ketchup

Vinegar

Preparing the dough

If you’ve chosen not to use wanton wrappers, you can prepare your own mantu dough by mixing together the rice, white, and plain flour with the vegetable or olive oil and salt. This mixture should be firm enough to be kneaded and then rolled out. Once it is rolled out thin enough (as thin as wanton wraps), you should cover it with a moist cloth and let it rest for at least 20 minutes.

Cooking the meat filling

While you’re letting the dough rest, you can prepare the meat filling. You will need a skillet for this one, and make sure that you’ve let the ground meat thaw from the freezer. This is better than defrosting it inside the microwave. On medium heat, add about 2 table spoons of oil on the skillet. Then, add the thawed ground meat and stir. You can add chopped onions if you like onions. Some people, though, find the onions too strong, so they only mix in half, or cook the meat without onions at all. Add all the other spices to the mix before pouring one cup of water. You should just let the water dry out. This should take 25 to 30 minutes. Once the meat is cooked (it should be golden brown), set it aside and let it cool.

Making the dumplings

While letting the filling cool, we can then go back to the dough. By this time, the dough would have rested enough. We can then break the pieces of dough into circular shapes. You can use a cookie cutter for this one, or simply press down the upper portion of a small bowl. If you’re using wanton wrappers which are already cut into small squares, you can skip this part altogether.

Once you’ve cut the dough, or separated the wanton wrappers, you can then fill the dumpling with meat. Put one small teaspoon or tablespoon of meat filling (depending on the size of your dough) in the middle portion of the circle or the square. Then, dip your fingers in water to moisten the edges of the dough or wrap. Then, bring the other half of the wrap over the bottom half so that you’ll make small triangular shapes. You can fold the edges to make a pattern, or simply press down the two sides to seal the dumpling. If you’ve made empanaditas in the past, this process is very similar. After filling in all the dough with meat, put oil at the bottom of every dumpling. Place the once you want to serve in the steam cooker and let these cook for 30 to 40 minutes. You can keep the rest in the refrigerator so you can serve them later if you’re thinking of having Mantus for dinner as well.

Making the dip

While the mantus are in the steam cooker, you can go ahead and make the yoghurt dip. All you will need for this are fresh yoghurt, dried or fresh mint, and garlic. The proportions of these ingredients will depend on your taste. If you like garlic, you can use a lot of garlic and only add a hint of mint to taste. Mix all of these together in the food processor. The garlic should be ground enough so that no big particles are left on the dip. Put this in a small bowl and prepare the dumpling platter.

Plating

Presentation is essential when you’re serving Mantus. Of course, some people would argue that this shouldn’t affect the taste at all, and you can serve the mantus the same way you’d serve fried spring rolls. However, if just feels more special when you serve Afghan Mantu this way. You should have a few pieces of lettuce on hand. Put these as bedding on the biggest platter you can find at home. Put the yoghurt dip in the center. Once the dumplings are cooked, arrange them on top of the lettuce. Then, you can take a teaspoon and drizzle some of the yoghurt mix on top of the Mantu dumplings. You can alternate this with ketchup and a few sprinkling of vinegar. If you don’t like your Mantu too sour, you can do away with the vinegar altogether. Then, chop a tomato into cubes and garnish the plate.

Variations

Although the Afghan Mantu is steamed, some people also prepare them fried. They’re very similar to Chinese dumplings save for the dip and the spicy additions in the filling. Mantu dumplings are great finger foods when you’re having guests over, or you can also serve them with fried or steamed rice, or a salad. You can also bring Mantu dumplings if you’re having a picnic. They’re easy to prepare, and they keep well during travel.