Turkish style pasta with beef, eggplant and yogurt sauce
Well, my history with manti (=turkish dumplings filled with minced meat and topped with yogurt sauce and red pepper flakes) goes like this: we were out with our friends who lived for a while in Turkey and we said we want to try turkish food. They gave us two options, one of them was the new manti place in town, and we went for the manti. We had no clue what manti were, but we trusted our friends and that was a good choice as the manti were delicious. What stuck to my mind was the yogurt sauce, and I knew I had to cook something similar at home, meaning pasta with yogurt sauce and maybe meat as a bonus, the dumpling part takes too much time which I don't have as I work full-time and do some other stuffs besides.
Some days later I was browsing my nyt cooking app(which I totally love and browse almost every day) and what do I see? A recipe by Melissa Clark for pasta with minced meat and yogurt sauce. Even before I read the recipe I thought "...hmmm, that sounds like manti", and there it was in the description of the recipe "decomposed manti". So this is it, my take on Melissa Clarks decomposed manti.
P.S. until I get a new picture, take a look at the photos of manti in this blog post, they are so small I always think somebody has to love making them, otherwise I don't know where you would get the patience from (did you ever try to make handmade pasta filled with somethig? it takes hundreds of years and lots of patience and the smaller they get the more patience you need)
P.P.S. after I made the pasta I read about manti and have seen that you could top them with sumac, I am really sad I didn't know that before, as on my last trip home I bought sumac and I didn't have the chance to try it. On a side note, I always ask myself why the spices are so cheap at home, should I worry? Buying sumac in Germany would have cost me a small fortune, in Romania it was like 2 euros for a ton of sumac. Hmmm...
Servings: 3
Difficulty: easy
Preparation time: 45 minutes
Ingredients:
- 1 large eggplant, cut in cubes
- 5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher or coarse sea salt, more to taste
- 5 fat garlic cloves, minced
- 1 large onion, minced
- 450 ground beef or pork or a mix of both
- 1/2 teaspoon red pepper, preferably Turkish or Aleppo, more to taste
- Freshly ground black pepper to taste
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill, more to taste
- 225 g orecchiette or penne pasta
- 400 g plain Greek yogurt
- 2 to 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, to taste (optional)
- dried mint, sumac, red pepper flakes (optional)
Method:
- Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Bring a pot of water to boil for pasta.
- Toss eggplant with 4 tablespoons oil and a large pinch of salt. Spread on a baking sheet, making sure there is room between pieces, and roast until crisp and brown, 15 to 20 minutes.
- In a large skillet, heat remaining tablespoon oil. Add 3 minced garlic cloves and the onion and sauté until fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes.
- Add beef, 1/2 teaspoon salt, red pepper, and black pepper to taste. Sauté until beef is no longer pink, about 5 minutes.
- Stir in dill and cook for another 2 minutes.
- Stir eggplant into beef.
- Taste and adjust seasonings.
- Cook pasta according to package directions.
- This step is optional, I did not taste the difference, but maybe I just did it wrong: in a small saucepan, melt butter: the amount is to your taste. Let cook until it turns golden brown and smells nutty, about 5 minutes.
- In a small bowl, stir together yogurt, remaining garlic and a pinch of salt.
- Drain pasta and spread on a serving platter. Top with beef-eggplant mixture, then with yogurt sauce. Pour melted butter over top.
- Sprinkle on additional red pepper flakes and some dried mint. Maybe even some sumac.
- Serve immediately.
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