Today's look at Russian food is for Steve and Stefanie, the proud new parents of boy born in Novosibirsk. You may remember that Steve was the creator of the snowsuit swap I wrote about back in September. He and Stef had just made their first trip to Novosibirsk and were expecting a winter court date. They went back for trip two last week and are now a family of three.

I can't post a glass of Champagne on this blog (except as a photo), but I can devote the Monday blog entry on Russian food to the item that appears to have been Steve's favorite on his trips to Novosibirsk: manty.

I have to admit that I had never heard of, or tasted, this food before Steve raved about them. But here's what I have learned.

Manty, or manti as it is sometimes written, is a kind of dumpling. Some sources say it originated in central Asia, others attribute it to Turkey. Steve identified the place where he ate them in Novosibirsk as being a purveyor of Kazakh food. Most recipes I have found agree that dough is a simple flour and water creation, and that the filling is made from ground lamb or mutton. There are differing opinions on how the filling should be spiced and how they are sauced, if at all.

For recipes, I consulted RusCuisine and a Web site called International Recipes, which said manty were Uzbekh, as well as my Russian cooking bible, "Please To The Table".

And then I cheated. Despite having had a pasta maker for 20 years, I still can't consistently make good wrappers for filled pasta. So I grabbed an extra package of wonton wrappers at the Chinese grocery and started cooking.

None of my grocery stores had ground lamb, but that's easy enough to do in the Cuisinart if you follow their directions and start with a piece of lightly frozen meat. I used about a one-pound piece of lamb from a boned leg roast. I chopped two yellow onions next, and mixed that with the lamb and seasoned the whole thing with salt and pepper and a dot of ground coriander.

Steve's blog entry said the manty he ate were palm-sized. But I find that smaller is easier to manage for the kids. So I dropped a tablespoon of filling on each wonton wrapper and folded them in half. Don't forget to put a bit of water on the edges of the wrapper to make the seal hold.

Rather than drop them into boiling water the way I would for ravioli and pelmeni, I followed the directions in "Please To The Table" and cooked them in a Chinese steamer. To top them off, I made a simple sauce of sour cream, chopped garlic and dried mint. Some recipes call for thick yogurt or the super-fat Russian smetana, instead of sour cream.

I didn’t tell the kids that the filling was lamb until after they had tasted a few. I got one vote for "make this again" and one for "I like pelmeni better". I have no idea how my homemade ones compare to those in Novosibirsk, but I'm pretty sure that right now, Steve and his family have better things to worry about.

Congratulations to you all.

Image credit: Clarita at Morguefile.com