This recipe is from Armenian Cuisine by Aline Kamakian and Barbara Drieskens: Cookery book from the Mayrig Restaurant, Beirut, Lebanon, introduced by Arda Eghiayan.
My birthday celebrations have become a chance for my friends to try fabulous Armenian and Middle-Eastern cuisine. The problem would come when they would ask me what was in each dish and I would struggle to find the English word for the spice or the grain—this book would have very much come in handy.
Armenian Cuisine, by the founders and chefs at the Mayrig restaurant in Beirut, has brought to market a stunning cookery book which would be a wonderful coffee table book in itself, but for the fact that it will get quickly stained by food through overuse. The chapters are typically divided by ingredient but more interestingly, throughout the book are interviews regarding the cuisine in a different region of historic Armenia and their specialties such as Urfa, Musa Ler and Cilicia, bringing together in one book dishes that remind me of my Lebanese—Armenian grandmother but also my Cypriot-Armenian grandmother and their cooking traditions. Like the best of these women, all the measurements are in cups and you can easily end up cooking for 20 people with one recipe—the only way for us.
Interspersed throughout the book are explanations on the ingredients—the garmir biber that we all know and love but I could not for the life of me find an English equivalent. In addition, are also some beautiful photos of food, landscape and the writer of the book and their families—as I say a coffee table book as much as an incredible cookbook.
Ingredients
Stuffing:
1/3 kg minced beef (twice minced and half fat)
2 onions, chopped
½ teaspoon salt
1/3 teaspoon seven spices
1/3 teaspoon red pepper powder
¼ teaspoon black pepper
Dough:
2 cups flour
2/3 cup water
1 teaspoon salt
Yoghurt:
3 cloves of garlic crushed
1 cup strained yoghurt
1/2 cup of water
Some sumac powder for garnishing
Sauce:
1 tablespoon butter
2 cups meat stock (or 1 cube solved in ½ l of water)
½ tablespoon tomato paste
½ tablespoon hot red pepper paste
Salt
Preparation
2h30 preparation time | 5 Portions
Blend the flour with the water and salt and knead together until you obtain a smooth mixture.
Let the dough rest for 1 hour.
Combine the ingredients of the stuffing and knead them together.
Open the dough and roll it into a thin flat surface (1 to 2 mm) and cut into squares of 5 x 3 cm. Place half a teaspoon of stuffing on each patch of dough and fold the rectangular in two, pressing the corners together. Then squeeze the sides under the corners together and inward to form a little boat.
Arrange the dumplings on a baking dish covered with a thin layer of sunflower oil. Place in the oven (preheated on 350°C) until they become golden.
Prepare the sauce by melting the butter on low heat and mixing it with the pepper and tomato paste. Add 2 cups of meat stock and some salt according to taste. When the mixture boils, remove it from heat and keep it warm.
Mix the yoghurt with the crushed garlic and dilute with some water to obtain a fluid mixture. Just before serving, pour the sauce over the dumplings, cover with a thick layer of yoghurt and sprinkle with sumac.
Or: place the mante in individual plates and serve the sauce and the yoghurt on the side so that each one can add sauce and yoghurt according to his or her taste.
And here are some images of Gagik Stepan-Sarkissian’s mante:
By Arda Eghiayan