Recipe: The Faux Manti

A recipe (by me) from Dan Pashman's 'Anything's Pastable'

THE FAUX MANTI (ARMENIAN SPICED LAMB AND SHELLS)

SERVES 4 TO 6   •   Total time: 1 Hour   •   developed with Andrew Janjigian

When I first set out to find collaborators for this cookbook, the respected recipe developer, baking teacher, and writer Andrew Janjigian was one of the first people I called. He said he was too busy to work together on a bunch of recipes, but he did have one idea for a pasta dish that he’d been noodling on for years, waiting for the right place to share it. He decided this cookbook should be that place. So I’ll let Andrew set this one up in his own words . . . 

Sini manti are miniature canoe-shaped, lamb- filled dumplings, baked until crisp and then served in a tomatoey lamb broth with a large dollop of garlic- laden yogurt and a sprinkle of ground sumac. It’s an essential dish to many Armenian families, mine included, and we eat it every year on Christmas Eve. But the dumplings are absurdly time-consuming to make; my aunts used to gather several weekends in a row in the lead-up to the feast in order to make enough of them, only to have them disappear in a flash on the big day. 

Which is why it makes sense that you find “mock” manti recipes in many Armenian church cookbooks, substituting shell pasta for the dumpling skins and a liquidy meat gravy meant to re-create both the filling and the broth. Most take a pretty simple approach, cooking ground beef or lamb with chicken broth and tomato paste, but I wanted mine to replicate all of the vibrance and savor of the real thing. The soft texture of the pasta is a far cry from that of the crisp, crunchy dumplings, but the joy of the dish still comes through. 

What I love about this dish is that because it shares some similarities with other tomato-based meat sauces, it feels instantly familiar. But the depth of flavor from the sumac and Aleppo pepper and the addition of the garlic yogurt add whole new layers to an experience I thought I knew. Thank you, Andrew, for choosing my book to share your recipe!

Ingredients

YOGURT-GARLIC SAUCE (SEE NOTE) 

2 garlic cloves, minced 

½ teaspoon kosher salt 

2 cups (16 ounces) plain whole-milk or 2% Greek yogurt 

MEAT SAUCE AND PASTA 

1 pound ground lamb (or 80/20 ground beef) 

½ teaspoon baking soda 

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 

1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped 

3 garlic cloves, minced 

1 teaspoon plus 

2 tablespoons kosher salt 

¼ cup chopped fresh parsley leaves and tender stems 

¼ cup tomato paste 

3 teaspoons Aleppo pepper (see note) 

2 teaspoons sweet paprika 

1 teaspoon ground allspice 

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 

2 cups (16 ounces) chicken stock 

2 teaspoons ground sumac

1 pound medium shells

Directions

1. For the yogurt-garlic sauce: Place the garlic on a cutting board, sprinkle with the salt, and use a fork to mash it into a rough paste. Place the yogurt in a medium bowl and use the fork to stir the garlic paste into the yogurt until evenly combined; cover and set aside. 

2. For the meat sauce and pasta: In a medium bowl, combine the lamb, 2 tablespoons of water, and ¼ teaspoon of the baking soda and gently knead until just combined; set aside. Heat the oil in a Dutch oven (or large pot if you also have a second large pot for the pasta) over medium heat until shimmering. Add the onion, garlic, 1 teaspoon of the salt, and the remaining ¼ teaspoon of baking soda and cook, stirring often, until the onion begins to soften and coat the pot, 6 to 8 minutes. Add the lamb mixture and use a wooden spoon to break it up into ¼- to ½-inch pieces. Cook, stirring often, until the meat begins to brown and form a fond (or browned layer) on the bottom of the pot, 12 to 16 minutes; remove the pot from the heat. 

3. Move the meat to one side of the pot, then tilt slightly to let the fat drain to the opposite side. Use a spoon to remove and discard all but about 2 tablespoons of the fat (if your lamb is very lean and you have less than 2 tablespoons of fat, make up the difference with olive oil). Add 2 tablespoons of the parsley, the tomato paste, 1 teaspoon of the Aleppo pepper, the paprika, allspice, and black pepper to the pot and return the heat to medium. Cook, stirring, until the tomato paste darkens to a brick red, 2 to 4 minutes. Add the broth and 1 cup of water, increase the heat to high, and bring to a simmer, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Reduce the heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, until thickened slightly and the fat has separated from the sauce, 8 to 10 minutes. Cover and remove from the heat. (At this point the sauce can sit for up to 1 hour, be refrigerated for up to 3 days, or frozen for up to 1 month. Warm in a covered pot over low heat before proceeding with the recipe.) 

4. Bring 4 quarts of water and the remaining 2 tablespoons of salt to a boil in a large pot. Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook for 2 minutes less than the low end of the package instructions. Use a mesh spider to transfer the pasta directly to the sauce in the pot and return the heat to medium. Add ¼ cup of the pasta cooking water and toss until the sauce is thickened but still brothy, 2 to 4 minutes. (If the sauce seems too thick, add more pasta water ¼ cup at a time to loosen.) Remove the pot from the heat and stir in the remaining 2 tablespoons of parsley. 

5. In a small bowl, stir together the remaining 2 teaspoons of Aleppo pepper and the sumac and set aside. 

6. Transfer the pasta to individual bowls, dollop 2 tablespoons of the yogurt-garlic sauce on each serving, and sprinkle with ½ teaspoon of the Aleppo-sumac mixture. Serve with the remaining yogurt sauce and Aleppo-sumac mixture.

YOGURT-GARLIC SAUCE NOTE: This will likely yield more yogurt-garlic sauce than you need, but as Andrew told me, “Armenians like a lot of yogurt.” You can make half, but then you risk running low, and making three-quarters of it just feels annoying. (I don’t want to ask you to use 1 ½ cloves of garlic.) So if you have extra yogurt-garlic sauce, you can keep it in the fridge for up to a week, and it’ll work well on any of the other dishes in this book that call for yogurt, including the Keema Bolognese (page 160) and the Mac ’n’ Dal (page 45).

ALEPPO PEPPER NOTE: If you can’t find Aleppo pepper, substitute an additional 1 teaspoon of paprika plus ⅛ teaspoon of cayenne pepper in the sauce in step 3. For the finishing Aleppo-sumac mixture in step 5, substitute paprika or gochugaru.