Manti is an extraordinary dish from Turkey: tiny lamb-stuffed dumplings topped with three sauces: caramelized tomato sauce, brown butter sauce, and garlicky yogurt sauce. I’m excited to show you how to make authentic Turkish manti at home.
When in Turkey, don’t underestimate the significance of the size of your manti. If you’re served extremely small manti, your host thinks very highly of you – apparently the smaller the manti, the more special you are. After spending an afternoon making manti from scratch, I totally get it. This is not a dish you can throw together casually and serve to just anyone. Each one of these tiny, lamb-stuffed dumplings is a carefully, hand-wrapped gift. Once shaped, they’re baked, boiled, and then topped with three different sauces – brown butter, caramelized tomato paste, and garlicky yogurt. Making manti is definitely an undertaking, but it’s totally worth the effort. All of the time and care that goes into making them comes shining through – when served a bowl of manti, you can feel the love.