Borsch(T) Again?

[Diplomacy]

What is your favorite cuisine from any part of the FSU?  For one I would like to here about interesting Regional dishes. For me the breads where amazing and the stuffed peppers.  I never boiled the peppers in the stock like I observed and learned there.  Makes for a huge improvement IMO.

[Vaughn]

One of my favorites is of Eastern origin, and popular within the Tatar culture. It's called
манты, roughly pronounced mahn-TEE. (swallow the "EE" sound slightly). I never
tried this in Russia, but my wife suddenly began making it in 2004, after a much-needed
tool arrived - a light aluminum pot with perforated inserts, called a мантышнице
(mahn-TEESH-neet-syeh). Manti is an Eastern variation on Italian ravioli or the widely
known "pelmyeni" that many of us have sampled in the FSU. It's outer shell is a thick
al dente pasta, with a meat (we use ground beef) filling, although vegetables can
also be introduced. The manti are made like pelmyeni on a counter top, frozen for future
use - and steamed in the necessary мантышнице.

Below is a photo of finished Manti, and below that, a link to the Cyrillic recipe - which
I recommend you check out, and print for your wife/girlfriend. It is quite tasty, and I
usually top each piece with sour cream. Six of these will fill me well.



The step by step recipe, with photos:
http://www.eda-server.ru/culinary-school/meat/m000023.htm

ENJOY!     Vaughn

[Shadow]

Manti is also one of our favorites, however I would like to note that it is closer to the Chinese Wan-Tan than to ravioli or pelmeni.

Interesting recipe, but we use less onions, no pumpkins and a mix of 70% Beef and 30% pork. It will guarantee a perfect sauce.
One of the attractions of Manti is that the moisture from the meat stays inside the pasta, with as result a 'juice' that you have to be skilled not to spill. Eating by hand is obligatory.

When you have extra pasta, it can be fried in oil and salted called Leposkha. They are excellent as snacks or bread.

One salad we make for holidays is made of crab (or surimi), mais and mayonaise.

Piroshki is like bread filled with a mix of vegetables and eggs, and we have our own variant where we fill the dough with hot-dog.

Russians have a wie variety of sausages that beat the 50 salami variants in taste.
The ones called 'Hungarian' sausage are the best in taste.

For a light breakfast there is a cheap sausage that was very popular in Soviet times, called Doktorskaya. It can be fried, cooked or used in salads.

[Diplomacy]

She did not make them before.

I will scour EBAY for the much needed tool

As for the EE and swallow at the end.  I have been trying to do EE and then a soft uh.  Is that heading down the right road?

[siberia]

2 things about the Manti:

1. they should be with lamb (not beef, not pork) as the meat. Small chunks, not ground, but smallest dice, traditionally with pumpkin/squash also and yes, the juice should squirt out when you bite them. The traditional sauce is tomato with garlic and butter together.
2. the pan is one you can buy in the Chinese grocery stores in the US. They have the exact same one, and it costs usually about $25. I have been using it since 1998 with great success.