isithalal.food · Recipes

Beef and sour cherry manti with Halal beef

Selin Kiazim's Turkish manti: tiny egg-pasta dumplings filled with Halal beef mince, onion, parsley, sour cherries and fennel, served with garlic yogurt and a tomato and pul biber butter.

Turkish · Main · Advanced · 4 to 6 portions · 140 min

Each method follows published technique for the dish, and every Halal substitution is checked against the ingredient pages we cite. Photographs come from our ingredient library rather than the finished dish.

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Why Halal checks matter here

The filling is 125 g of beef mince, which is Halal only from a Halal-slaughtered animal; the sauce is finished with sherry vinegar, a wine vinegar that is a scholarly difference, and the garlic yogurt needs a gelatin check.

Halal-critical ingredients

• Beef mince: Beef is Halal only from a Halal-slaughtered animal, and mince without a Halal mark doesn't say how the animal was slaughtered. Buy the mince from a Halal butcher or in a certified pack. See Beef.
• Sherry vinegar: Sherry vinegar is a wine vinegar, and wine vinegar is a scholarly difference: the Hanafi school, Indonesia's MUI and IslamQA permit it, while the classical Shafi'i rule and Malaysia's 2006 fatwa do not. Use it only if your school accepts it, or season with a squeeze of lemon juice instead (our swap). See Red wine vinegar.
• Greek yogurt: Plain yogurt is milk fermented with cultures, but gelatin turns up in set, low-fat and dessert yogurts. Choose a yogurt with no gelatin on the label. See Yogurt.

Ingredients

Dough

• 300 g Turkish inci flour or '00' pasta flour, plus extra for dusting
• 1 tsp fine salt
• 1 large egg, beaten
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• about 2 tbsp water
• for dusting fine semolina, for dusting

Filling

• 125 g Halal beef mince
• 30 g onion (½ small), very finely chopped
• 20 g parsley, very finely chopped
• 20 g dried sour cherries, chopped
• ½ tsp fennel seeds, ground

Tomato-chilli butter

• 200 g unsalted butter
• pinch dried oregano
• 1½ tbsp tomato purée
• 500 g tomato passata
• splash sherry vinegar, to season (see the vinegar check below)
• pinch caster sugar, to season
• 1 tbsp pul biber (Turkish chilli flakes)

Garlic yogurt and to serve

• 125 g Greek yogurt (no gelatine)
• ½ small garlic clove, finely grated
• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• to serve toasted pine nuts
• to serve thyme leaves

Method

1. Make the dough. Put the flour and salt in a stand mixer with a dough hook. Add the egg and oil and mix on a low speed, gradually adding about 2 tbsp water. Once it starts to clump, tip onto a lightly floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes until firm and smooth. Cut into four, wrap each piece and chill for 30 minutes.
2. Make the filling. Mix all the filling ingredients well by hand with some salt. Fry a little to check the seasoning.
3. Shape the manti. Feed one piece of dough through the widest setting of a pasta machine, fold it in half and roll again, working down to setting 2 or 3. Lay it on a surface dusted with semolina and cut into 6 cm squares. Put 1 tsp filling in the centre of each, brush a little water around the edges and gather them up in the middle. Keep going until the filling is used up, setting the manti on a tray heavily dusted with semolina and keeping the rest of the dough wrapped. You'll have dough left over. The manti can be chilled for up to 24 hours.
4. Make the tomato-chilli butter. Melt half the butter in a pan, add the oregano and tomato purée and cook briefly, then pour in the passata with a pinch of salt. Cook over a low heat for about 20 minutes and finish with a splash of sherry vinegar and a pinch of sugar. Heat the rest of the butter until it browns, strain it through a fine sieve, cool for 2 minutes and stir in the pul biber. Combine the sauce and chilli butter and keep warm.
5. Make the garlic yogurt. Whisk the yogurt, garlic and oil with 2 tbsp water.
6. Cook and serve. Cook the manti in boiling water for about 5 minutes, until tender and the meat is cooked through. Drain and serve with the garlic yogurt and chilli butter, scattered with pine nuts and thyme.

Allergens

gluten (flour, semolina), eggs, milk (butter, yogurt), pine nuts

How this recipe was researched

Method adapted from BBC Good Food's 'Beef & sour cherry manti with tomato-chilli butter' by Selin Kiazim, which calls it a Turkish feast (serves 4 to 6: 300 g Turkish inci flour or '00' pasta flour and 1 tsp fine salt mixed in a stand mixer with a dough hook with 1 large beaten egg, 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil and about 2 tbsp water, kneaded about 10 minutes, quartered, wrapped and chilled 30 minutes; filling of 125 g beef mince, 30 g very finely chopped onion, 20 g parsley, 20 g chopped dried sour cherries and ½ tsp ground fennel seeds with salt, a little fried to check seasoning; the dough rolled through a pasta machine to setting 2 or 3, cut into 6 cm squares on semolina, 1 tsp filling on each, edges brushed with water and gathered in the centre; there will be more dough than needed; the manti can be chilled up to 24 hours; tomato-chilli butter of half of 200 g unsalted butter melted with a pinch of dried oregano and 1½ tbsp tomato purée, 500 g passata and salt cooked about 20 minutes on low, finished with a splash of sherry vinegar and a pinch of caster sugar, the other half of the butter browned, strained, cooled 2 minutes and mixed with 1 tbsp pul biber, then combined with the sauce; garlic yogurt of 125 g Greek yogurt, ½ small grated garlic clove and 1 tbsp olive oil whisked with 2 tbsp water; the manti boiled about 5 minutes and served with the yogurt, the chilli butter, toasted pine nuts and thyme). We specified Halal beef mince, flagged the sherry vinegar per school with lemon juice as our swap, and flagged the yogurt's label; nothing else needed changing. Timings follow the published technique rather than a kitchen test.

Photograph from our ingredient library: a plate of dumplings, not the finished dish from this recipe.