My mother once told me that if a person can fold mantu, that person will never be lonely. She meant something specific by this. Mantu — the beef-filled, steamed Afghan dumplings topped with garlicky yoghurt and a slow-cooked split-pea tomato sauce — are not weeknight food. They take a Sunday afternoon. They take three people if you want to finish in two hours, or two people if you have nowhere to be, or one person if you’ve made them so many times that your hands fold without your mind. And they almost always end with a table full of family, because nobody, ever, makes a small batch of mantu.

This week I made about 140. My niece came over. Her boyfriend, who’d never seen a mantu in his life, sat at the kitchen island and learned the pinch. By dinner he was folding faster than I was. This is what they do.

What is mantu, actually

Mantu travelled into Afghanistan along the same Silk Road that carried it to Uzbekistan (where it’s called manti), Turkey, Korea (mandu), and even to Italy as the ancestor of certain ravioli traditions. There’s a good overview on Wikipedia of the whole family of dumpling. What’s distinctly Afghan is the combination of three sauces on top: the yoghurt with garlic and dried mint, the tomato-and-split-pea sauce that’s cooked separately, and sometimes a drizzle of chilli oil. The dumpling itself is small, square, pinched into a kind of four-pointed star.

You can buy them frozen in Sydney now — there’s an Afghan grocer in Auburn and another in Merrylands who do excellent ones — but the homemade version has a thinner skin and a more delicate filling than anything commercial. It’s worth the effort once or twice a year.

The filling

The traditional filling is beef and onion. Lamb works. Some families use a beef-lamb mix. The proportions in my mother’s recipe, which I’ve been making since I was 12, are:

• 500g beef mince (10-15% fat — too lean and the filling is dry)
• 2 large brown onions, very finely chopped (not grated — grated onions release too much water)
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt
• Half a teaspoon of ground cumin (optional — my mother didn’t use it, but I do)
• A pinch of cayenne if you want a little heat

The trick with the onion is to chop it by hand so finely it almost disappears into the mince. A food processor turns it into a slurry. You want texture, not a paste. Mix everything in a bowl with your hands. Leave it for half an hour before filling to let the flavours settle.

The dough

Plain flour, water, salt, and a small amount of oil. The Afghan tradition uses no eggs in mantu dough. The ratio I use:

• 500g plain flour
• About 250ml warm water (start with 200ml, add as needed)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Knead for ten minutes by hand or six in a stand mixer with a dough hook. The dough should be smooth, firm, and slightly elastic. Rest it under a damp cloth for 30 minutes. This is non-negotiable. If you skip the rest, the dough fights you when you roll it.

Roll out very thin — almost transparent. About 1mm if you can. Cut into 7cm squares. Place a heaped teaspoon of filling in the centre.

The fold

This is where you learn or you don’t. Bring two opposite corners together over the filling and pinch. Bring the other two corners together. Pinch the four resulting seams together at the centre, then pinch each side seam closed. You should end up with a small parcel with four little points and a sealed top. Watch your mother, your aunt, or — if you don’t have either — there’s an excellent video on the SBS Food site where an Afghan home cook walks through it.

You’ll be slow at first. Twenty per hour, maybe. By number 30 you’ll be at one a minute. By number 80 you’ll have rhythm. By number 120 you’ll be talking and folding without looking down.

The two sauces

Garlic yoghurt: Greek yoghurt (300g), two cloves of garlic crushed with salt into a paste, a teaspoon of dried mint, salt to taste. Stir, taste, adjust. This sits in the fridge while everything else happens.

Split pea tomato: Soak 150g of yellow split peas for at least four hours. Drain. In a pot, sauté a finely chopped onion in oil. Add the split peas, a tin of crushed tomatoes, a teaspoon of turmeric, salt, pepper, and about 500ml of water or stock. Simmer covered for 45 minutes until the peas are soft and the sauce has thickened. Some families add cubed lamb or beef to this sauce — it becomes the main protein with the dumplings as the carb. My family keeps it vegetarian so the beef in the mantu carries the meat.

Steaming

Mantu must be steamed, not boiled. Brush a metal steamer basket lightly with oil. Arrange the dumplings without touching. Steam over rapidly boiling water for 35-40 minutes. The filling cooks through; the skin becomes translucent but holds together.

Plating

Spread a layer of yoghurt on a serving platter. Arrange the hot mantu on top. Spoon the split pea sauce over and around the dumplings. Drizzle a little extra yoghurt and a sprinkle of dried mint on top. If you want chilli oil, add it now.

Serve immediately. Mantu does not wait. The skins continue to absorb moisture, and what was perfect at minute three becomes gluey at minute fifteen.

The thing nobody tells you

You will make too few the first time. Plan on 8-10 mantu per person as a main, 5-6 as a starter. A family of four needs at least 40, plus the inevitable extras for whoever drops in. Make 80 if you’re hosting six people. The recipe scales, the time does not — folding 40 versus folding 80 is about the same amount of work once you’re set up. And freeze the leftovers raw on a tray, then bag them; future-you will be grateful at 6pm on a Wednesday.

Mariam