Manti next to ravioli, tortellini, gyoza, pierogi and pelmeni

Five questions that decide everything

If you want to compare dumplings, five questions get you further than any map.

How big?

That's the biggest difference of all. Kayseri Manti weigh around four grams — you eat thirty, forty pieces. Ravioli, pierogi and gyoza are many times that; you eat six to ten.

What's in the dough?

Manti dough is flour, water, salt. Italian pasta dough traditionally contains egg, which makes it more golden, softer and more tear-resistant.

What's in the filling?

Here they're all more alike than you'd think: minced meat, potato, cheese, cabbage. The filling distinguishes dumplings the least.

How cooked?

Boiled, steamed, pan-fried, deep-fried — and many dishes combine two of those.

And what goes on top?

That's the question where Manti parts most clearly from all the others.

The one difference you can remember

With almost all relatives, the sauce lies on top or alongside: tomato sauce over the ravioli, broth around the tortellini, a small bowl of soy sauce next to the gyoza, sour cream on the pierogi.

Ravioli get a sauce. Manti gets layers. Onto the cooked dumplings goes cold yogurt, then warm tomato sauce, then the spices — and you get all the layers at once on one spoon. That's not a side, that's the construction of the dish, and none of the others has it in this form.

Anyone who has eaten that once also understands why Manti is eaten with a spoon.

Ravioli

Italy. Bigger than Manti, dough usually with egg, often cut rectangular or round with a wavy edge. Filling from ricotta and spinach to meat. Boiled and served with a sauce that goes over the plate.

If you like ravioli, the way to Manti is short — but don't expect anything Italian. The dough is more austere, because there's no egg in it, and the acidity comes from the yogurt, not just from the tomato.

Tortellini

Emilia-Romagna. The most striking difference is the shape: the dough is wrapped around a fingertip and the ends are joined, making a ring. Classically they float in broth, not in sauce.

Of all the Italian relatives, tortellini come closest to Manti in size. That's why many people reaching for a word to describe Manti for the first time reach for this one.

Gyoza

Japan, adopted from Chinese jiaozi. Crescent-shaped, the pleats all running along one side. Usually they're first seared in the pan and then finished with a splash of water and steam — hence the one crisp side and the one soft side. With a dip of soy sauce and vinegar.

The difference from Manti is the cooking and the texture. Manti is soft; gyoza is two things at once.

If the fried side appeals to you, we have that too: Fried Dream is the same filling as the classic, but fried instead of boiled.

Pierogi

Poland. Crescent-shaped, with a twisted or pressed edge. The best-known filling is potato with quark. Boiled, often pan-fried in butter afterwards, with sour cream and fried onions.

Of all the relatives, pierogi come closest to Manti in the idea: a lactic acidity as the counterpart to the dough. With pierogi it's sour cream, with Manti yogurt.

You'll find the potato filling here in Golden Harvest and Hingel's Harvest.

Pelmeni

Russia and Siberia, with a long history as winter provisions — part of the point lies in freezing. Small, round, thin dough without egg, meat filling, boiled. With smetana, butter, sometimes vinegar.

In construction, pelmeni are the nearest neighbor of all the relatives: small, no egg in the dough, boiled, with a sour dairy component. The difference lies in the seasoning and in the fact that with Manti, tomato sauce and butter belong on top.

No, Manti isn't "the Turkish ravioli"

The phrase is convenient, and it's the reason we wrote this page.

It's right in exactly one respect — both are dough with filling — and misleading in all the others. It files one dish under another, as if one were the copy and the other the original. Manti is at least as old as what it's compared with, and it comes from a cuisine with its own logic: no egg in the dough, yogurt on the dumpling, spoon instead of fork.

Pasta is a bridge if you want to explain Manti — and strictly speaking, Manti belongs to it: dough, filling, sauce, cooked in water. What Manti is not is the copy of something Italian.

Where to start

If you come from ravioli or tortellini: The Original. The classic from Kayseri, yogurt and tomato sauce, the version for the first time.

If you come from pierogi: Golden Harvest, potato filling, mildly seasoned.

If gyoza brought you here: Fried Dream, fried.

And if you want to know what Manti actually is before you order: What Manti is.