Hengel is a large, triangle-folded dumpling made on Amasya tables with either a minced-meat or a plain filling. In everyday speech it is also called hıngel, and in some regions hangel or hingel. What sets it apart from small mantı is its size: because the square of dough is closed from corner to corner, each piece resembles a portion more than a single mouthful. For this reason hengel is known in Amasya as the dish of crowded family tables and of days when the preparation takes several pairs of hands. It is not regarded as an Amasya invention. It is the local form of a mantı tradition of Caucasian origin, made across a wide area in the east and north of Anatolia, and it has earned its own place among the city's dough-based dishes.

Name and Origin

The spelling of the word varies from region to region. Alongside hengel, hangel and hingel, the names hıngal and metez are also heard in Turkey; in Kurdish it is xingal, in Azerbaijani Turkish xıngal or xəngəl, and in Dagestan hinkal. The dish is generally accepted to have emerged in the Caucasus and to be known under a similar name almost everywhere in the region, Dagestan above all. The name Circassian mantı, used in some food writing, is consistent with this Caucasian connection. One food writer remarks that the look of hingel recalls Şeki embroidery; since Şeki is a town in Azerbaijan, the comparison can be said to echo the dish's link with the South Caucasus, though this is an inference.

One explanation of the name's meaning comes from Azerbaijan. According to a view attributed to the book on Azerbaijani culinary culture by Aynurə and Tahir Əmiraslanov, published in Baku in 2024, xəngəl arose from the combination of the words "xan" and "gəl". In the same circles it is also told that the earliest form of the dish goes back to a medieval dish called "Bughra Khan": when the soldiers were hungry and asked what to cook, Bughra Khan flattened a piece of dough in his palm and threw it into the pot. The story is traced to Faruk Sümer's publication on the Oghuzname of Rashid al-Din, but the source itself could not be consulted here and the account could not be verified. Those who repeat the story also accept that the dish of that time differed markedly from today's hengel in its size, in the way it was cut and in being cooked in meat broth. No impartial, detailed linguistic study of the word's origin could be found; the possibility that the "xan gəl" explanation is a folk etymology should be kept in mind, and this last point is an inference.

The traces in written sources are also disputed. According to some publications in Azerbaijan, the present leaf-like form of hengel appears in 19th-century sources: in a culinary treatise called Kârnâme by Nadir Mirza Qajar, said to have been completed in 1883, the dish is reportedly recorded as being cooked in the towns of Barda, Shirvan, Şeki and Shamakhi. Mohammad Reza Ghanoonparvar, who surveyed Persian cookbooks, states instead that the Kârnâme of Nader Mirza Qajar was written in the early 20th century. There is also an older work with the same name: the Kârnâme written in 1521 by Haji Muhammad Ali Bavarchi Baghdadi for an aristocratic patron in the last years of the Safavid ruler Shah Ismail is one of the oldest surviving cookbooks written in Persian; its only manuscript is in the Central Library of the University of Tehran. The identical titles of these two works can easily cause confusion. Whether the 1521 Kârnâme contains a recipe resembling hengel could not be verified here, so interpretations that carry the dish's history back to 16th-century Safavid cuisine should be treated with caution.

Hengel can be confused with khinkali from Georgian cuisine, but they are separate dishes. They are related by name, yet they differ in shape and in the way they are cooked. In writing on mantı, hengel is listed together with khinkali and the dish called haluj among the varieties of mantı.

Within the Mantı Family

The origin of mantı is not known with certainty. The Chinese word mantou is associated with mantı, but the fact that different Chinese characters were used to describe the same dish suggests that the word was borrowed from outside and adapted to Chinese script. Mantı may also have emerged in the lands of the Mongol Empire; it has been suggested that some varieties go back to the Uyghurs of north-western China. The earliest source to mention manta is thought to be the Yinshan Zhengyao, written by Hu Sihui in 1330. It is widely accepted that the dish travelled from Central Asia to Anatolia along the Silk Road through the Turks and Mongols. According to Holly Chase, Turkic and Mongol horsemen carried frozen or dried mantı with them on their migrations. Some researchers, by contrast, argue that mantı arose in the Middle East and spread to China and Korea along the Silk Road.

The oldest written mantı recipe in Ottoman cuisine appears in the Kitâbü't-Tabîh, written in the 15th century by Muhammed bin Mahmud Şirvani. In this recipe minced lamb and crushed chickpeas are stuffed into the dough, cinnamon and vinegar are added, the dish is garnished with sumac and, as today, served with garlic yoghurt. In Melceüt't Tabâhhin, the first printed cookbook, published in 1844, there is a recipe for Tatar böreği, a dish similar to mantı, which is not served with garlic yoghurt. In Turkish cuisine mantı takes more labour than in Central Asia and is usually served with tomato paste, melted butter and yoghurt, with mint and sumac as the preferred spices. Kayseri mantı received a geographical indication certificate in 2009; there are also regional names such as Sinop, Bosnian, Georgian, Sivas and Çorum mantı. Hengel is one branch of this broad family, combining unleavened dough with a minced-meat or potato filling and eaten with yoghurt.

The variety of mantı in Turkey shows hengel's place more clearly. Bartın rice mantı is made by placing a rice filling on squares of dough rolled as thin as börek pastry and closing them into little bundles; after being browned in a greased tray, hot meat or chicken stock is poured over them. In Bilecik, Bozüyük lentil mantı is made with green lentils and baked. Thracian-style mantı is cooked in a tray with meat stock or water mixed with tomato paste poured over it, and resembles a kind of börek. Bartın and Bozüyük mantı have received geographical indications from the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office. What these examples share is that the dough is cut into squares and closed around a filling; what sets them apart is the filling, the cooking method and the sauce. Hengel stands apart by the same logic, through its large cut, its yoghurt service and its hot buttery sauce.

Hengel in Turkey

In Turkey hengel is made in Artvin and its surroundings, especially in the district of Şavşat, as well as in Ardahan, Çorum, Sivas, Kayseri, the eastern Black Sea region, Erzurum and Kars. The meat version is mostly associated with Ardahan and with Posof on the Georgian border, while the version stuffed with potato is said to come from Erzurum. The filling of meat hengel contains onion, garlic and parsley alongside the mince, and the dish is served with a sauce of melted butter and yoghurt. The potato version is sometimes also called Sivas mantı. According to information traced to Müjgân Üçer's compilation on Sivas cuisine, in some parts of Sivas the hengel dough is closed into a triangle and boiled plain without any filling; this plain version, like the others, is eaten with yoghurt and butter. Since in Amasya too the dough is said to be cooked, if one wishes, with nothing inside, this resemblance between the two regions is worth noting.

According to Anadolu Agency, reporting within the Memleket Sofrası project carried out with the support of Karatay Municipality, hingel is prepared in homes in Sivas as an extension of the mantı tradition that reaches from the Caucasus into Anatolia. It is cut larger than other mantı and closed into a triangle, a square or a half-moon; its filling is mostly potato, onion and spices, and after boiling it is topped with butter, with garlic yoghurt, chilli flakes and mint added to taste. That it is made at weddings, feasts and special occasions, and that it is the dish of crowded family tables, matches its use in Amasya. Home recipes published today add egg to the dough, cut the sheet into rounds with the rim of a glass, make the filling from mince, grated onion and parsley, and serve the dish with garlic yoghurt and a sauce of tomato paste fried in butter. These recipes also note that hingel is larger than mantı and that, unboiled, it can be frozen on floured trays and kept for two or three months.

Some publications present hengel as a dish of the Kars region; this shows that the dish does not belong to a single province and that each region interprets it according to its own taste. In terms of geographical indication the best-known example is Erzurum: Erzurum mantı, or Erzurum hıngeli, was registered by the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office on 11 August 2021. The Zeyniler hınkalı of Bursa received a similar registration on 15 February 2024. No such geographical indication record could be found for Amasya hengel; the products registered in Amasya's name include other dishes such as çörek, yağlı, keşkek, toyga soup, baklalı dolma and the dessert unutma beni.

Hengel in Neighbouring Regions

Erzurum Hıngeli

The example closest in form to Amasya hengel is Erzurum hıngeli, whose measurements have been put on record in its registration. Registered as a designation of origin on the application of the Erzurum Commodity Exchange, the dish is made by placing a filling of beef mince and onion in pieces of dough closed into triangles and boiling them in water. The registration specifies 500 grams of flour, 100 millilitres of water and one egg for the dough; the egg is said to be added to give the dough elasticity and to keep the texture from breaking down during boiling. The dough is kneaded for fifteen minutes, divided into four balls and rested for twenty minutes under a damp cloth. It is then rolled out with a rolling pin to a thickness of two millimetres and cut into 4×4 centimetre squares; three grams of filling are placed on each square and the dough is closed into a triangle. The filling consists of 250 grams of beef mince, 125 grams of grated onion, 10 grams of salt and 5 grams of black pepper.

Once the hıngel is cooked and transferred to the serving dish, hot butter is poured over it so that the pieces do not stick together; it is served, as preferred, with yoghurt or with a sauce cooked from butter, tomato paste, mint and red pepper. The registration cites the sourcing of the mince and butter from Erzurum, and the skill required to prepare the dough, as the product's link with its region; compliance is inspected by a commission at least once a year. Set beside the recipe recorded for Amasya, these measurements show a clear kinship: in the Amasya method too the dough is divided into four parts, rolled out with a rolling pin, cut into squares and closed into triangles. The difference lies mainly in size; in Amasya the squares are cut at about 5×5 centimetres, so Amasya hengel comes out somewhat larger than Erzurum's, and the boiled pieces go into the oven together with their yoghurt sauce.

Alaca Hingali

In Çorum, Amasya's western neighbour, hengel takes another form. In the recipe given under the name Alaca hingali in the book of local dishes compiled by the Çorum Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, a stiff dough is kneaded from one kilogram of flour, one egg, salt and one litre of water, divided into balls and rested for half an hour, then rolled out thin and wide and cut into large squares. The filling is made from lean beef mince, finely chopped onion, chilli flakes, black pepper, garlic and salt. Here the dough is not folded into a triangle; it is gathered from one corner and the middle and puckered so that it has eight "ears". The recipe stresses that the most important skill is to join the pieces so that the hingali's openings do not close and water can get inside.

The puckered pieces are cooked for four or five minutes in salted water boiling over a strong flame; when the puckered side begins to turn downwards, the hingali is known to be done. The sauce also differs from Amasya's: some of the water in which the hingali was boiled is added to pounded garlic, and this sauce is served in a bowl placed in the middle of the plate, while melted butter is drizzled over the hingali. The same book also includes Çorum's masaf mantısı, cooked in a tray and served at iftar tables throughout Ramadan. The Çorum example shows that even between neighbouring provinces the same name can be tied to different ways of closing and serving; in this respect the triangular shape of Amasya hengel stands closer to the practice in Erzurum and Sivas than to that of Çorum.

Dough-Based Dishes in Amasya Cuisine

Amasya cuisine rests on wheat, cracked wheat, chickpeas, broad beans, meat, yoghurt, vine leaves and herbs grown in the region. In recipes such as keşkek and toyga soup grain comes to the fore, while in dishes such as baklalı dolma and etli çiçek bamyası pulses and vegetables are combined with meat. Dough-based dishes hold a special place in this cuisine. Amasya çöreği with poppy seed; yağlı, cooked on a griddle with a mixture of fat, walnut and poppy between layers of dough; yanuç, made with çökelek cheese and parsley; meatless mantı; and various börek are prepared at different times, from everyday meals to special occasions. Poppy seed and walnut are frequent ingredients in these pastries.

In this context, hengel is a name mentioned in almost every list when Amasya's dough-based dishes are counted. In accounts of yanuç, too, it is written that in the traditional local cuisine yanuç is mentioned together with çörek, yağlı, hengel, meatless mantı and various börek. Meatless mantı is a recipe in which the dough and sauce come to the fore, reflecting a habit of preparing filling meals from few ingredients. It is stressed that in Amasya food is prepared, besides satisfying hunger, for meeting and sharing at the same table; dishes such as keşkek, baklalı dolma and toyga soup are made at weddings, feasts and large gatherings, and hengel is one of the dough dishes of these tables.

Hengel is also listed among the Amasya regional dishes approved by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The list includes Amasya çöreği, yağlı, katmer, kabak kavuklu pilav, bişi, cırıtka, döndürme, ekmek aşı, eli böğründe, haşhaşlı cevizli çörek, hengel, meatless mantı, kaypak, mayalı, patlıcanlı pilav, sini suböreği, tepsi böreği, yakasal böreği and yanuç. The list does not have the status of a geographical indication registration; it is an inventory of regional dishes, and it shows that hengel is counted as part of Amasya cuisine.

The Amasya Table Around Hengel

To understand at which table hengel appears, one has to look at Amasya's food culture. The city has a developed soup culture; distinct soups such as toyga, sakala çarpan, helle, yarma and kesme ibik are known, and çatal soup is also mentioned among the traditional ones. In this cuisine, weighted towards grain and pulses, keşkek, Amasya-style stuffed vine leaves, baklalı dolma and etli çiçek bamyası stand out. In Merzifon keşkek, ingredients such as wheat, meat, fenugreek and chickpeas are cooked in an earthenware pot, which shows how common dishes prepared collectively and brought to the table on special days are in the region.

Among the dough-based dishes, yağlı, resembling a large flatbread, is offered especially at crowded tables for feasts, weddings and circumcisions, and is protected by a geographical indication in Amasya's name. Yanuç is a pastry less known today; a dough made with yeast, flour, salt and water is flavoured with çökelek and parsley. Alongside layered or filled pastries such as yağlı, yanuç and çörek, hengel is not the only mantı variety eaten boiled or baked and served with yoghurt; meatless mantı belongs to the same table. On the sweet side, names such as yuka tatlısı, ayva gailesi, apple dessert, höşmerim, kalbur tatlısı and unutma beni are listed. Unutma beni is made from stale wholemeal bread, grape molasses, sugar and walnuts.

Preparing the Dough

Hengel dough is simple. Flour, water and salt are kneaded together, and some recipes add an egg. After kneading, the dough is left to rest; depending on the recipe the resting time ranges from fifteen to twenty minutes. In a recipe passed down as the Amasya method, the dough is divided into four equal parts, rolled out with a rolling pin with the help of flour and cut into squares of about 5×5 centimetres. In the Sivas recipe, by contrast, the dough is rolled out wide and cut into rounds with a glass; this shows that hengel is made from square dough in Amasya and mostly from round dough in Sivas, which is then closed into a triangle, a half-moon or a bundle.

A little filling is placed in the centre of each square and the dough is folded from corner to corner into a triangle. The edges are pressed firmly closed with the fingertips; this step matters so that the pieces do not open during boiling. The closed pieces are laid out on trays until the rest of the dough has been rolled and cut. The general recipe describes a similar method: the rolled dough is wrapped around the rolling pin and cut lengthwise down the middle, the strips are stacked and cut crosswise into squares, and the squares are separated so they do not stick while cooking; they are dried a little if desired, or dropped into boiling water without drying. Rolling, cutting and folding the dough piece by piece is work that takes patience. As for measurements, the two-millimetre sheet thickness specified in the Erzurum registration gives an idea of how thinly the dough is rolled in this family of dishes.

The Filling

The filling of Amasya hengel consists of mince blended with fried onion, black pepper and salt. Some accounts also note that the dough can be left plain if desired, that is, folded and cooked with nothing inside. In hengel recipes outside Amasya a potato filling is very common. Chopped onion, ground pepper and salt are added to boiled and mashed potato; in the recipe described in Sivas, one kilogram of potatoes and one large onion are used for one kilogram of flour. There are also recipes that use mince and potato together, and versions with a cheese filling are found as well. In the Erzurum and Çorum recipes raw grated or chopped onion is mixed into the mince, whereas in the recipe recorded for Amasya the onion is fried beforehand, a small but distinct difference. The choice of filling varies with the region and the means of the household.

Cooking Method

There are two distinct ways of cooking hengel. Some households boil the triangles in salted boiling water; others first brown them in the oven and then pour hot meat stock over them. Boiling gives a softer texture, while oven-browned hengel acquires a crisper, more pronounced flavour. The recipe passed down as the Amasya method uses both in succession: the pieces are boiled, transferred to a wide serving dish, covered with a mixture of yoghurt, garlic and mint, and the dish is baked in the oven until browned; it is brought to the table brushed with butter. This last stage sets Amasya hengel apart from the Erzurum and Çorum examples, which are boiled and served directly with their sauce.

The most distinctive feature of the service is the meeting of cold garlic yoghurt and hot butter. The cooked hengel is drained and placed on a wide plate, and plenty of garlicky strained yoghurt is poured over it. A sauce of chilli flakes or mint sizzled in butter is drizzled over last; at some tables tomato paste is added to this sauce. Hengel is mostly eaten at the evening meal. It is said to be found in restaurants serving regional home cooking, to offer a flavour different from classic mantı and to keep one full for a long time.

At the Table and in Society

In Amasya, hengel is above all the dish of crowded family tables and of feasts prepared through communal effort. Because rolling, cutting and folding the dough piece by piece suits many hands, women often gather and prepare it while talking. In this respect the preparation of hengel is also seen as part of neighbourliness and solidarity.

On Its Arrival in Amasya

Hengel has no documented history in Amasya; no written record has been found showing in which period, with which migration or through which family tradition it entered Amasya cuisine. The city's two main local sources are also silent on the matter. The dish is not named in Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar's Amasya Tarihi. Nor is hengel mentioned in the memoir in which Osman Fevzi Olcay describes the Amasya of the first half of the 20th century neighbourhood by neighbourhood; Olcay touches on food only here and there, writing that an acquaintance's cupboard held dishes from olive-oil dolma to su böreği, and that opposite the Eğri Mosque a man known as Hamza, of Çerkez Aliye's family, kept a shop that made excellent kebab.

Olcay's memoir does, however, clearly show the human ties between Amasya and the region the dish comes from. He records that in the Mir Hamza Nigârî neighbourhood lived Nigârî's relatives and fellow countrymen who had come from Shirvan, and that around Savadiye the majority of the population was made up of Turks and of immigrants from Shirvan. He mentions a samovar repairer among the immigrants from Oltu, a tradesman among the immigrants from Batumi, and the family of Hacı Mahmud Efendi of Shirvan; in the Mehmed Paşa neighbourhood he names the houses of Captain Çerkez Mustafa Ağa and Çerkez Safiye Hanım, and in another street that of Çerkez Ömer Efendi. Shirvan is one of the regions counted in Azerbaijani sources among the places where hengel was cooked; Oltu belongs to Erzurum, and Batumi lies just north of Artvin, so both are close to the belt where the dish is most widespread today.

For this reason it may be thought that hengel came to Amasya with immigrants from the Caucasus and north-eastern Anatolia in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This, however, is an inference: Olcay says nothing about the cooking of these families, and it is also possible that the dish reached the city earlier and by other routes. What can be said with certainty about the dish's past in Amasya is that it is one link in the mantı tradition reaching from the Caucasus into Anatolia, and that it is still made in the local cuisine today.

Chronology

1330: The Yinshan Zhengyao, considered the earliest source to mention manta, is written.

15th century: Muhammed bin Mahmud Şirvani's Kitâbü't-Tabîh contains the oldest written mantı recipe in Ottoman cuisine.

1521: Haji Muhammad Ali Bavarchi Baghdadi writes the Kârnâme, a Persian cookbook of the Safavid period; whether it contains a hengel recipe could not be verified.

1844: The first printed cookbook, Melceüt't Tabâhhin, is published; it describes Tatar böreği, a dish similar to mantı.

1883 or early 20th century: Nadir Mirza Qajar's Kârnâme is written; according to Azerbaijani sources it records that hengel was cooked in Barda, Shirvan, Şeki and Shamakhi. The date of the work is given differently in the sources.

2009: Kayseri mantı receives a geographical indication certificate.

11 August 2021: Erzurum mantı (Erzurum hıngeli) is registered as a designation of origin under registration number 847.

15 February 2024: Zeyniler hınkalı receives a geographical indication in the name of Bursa.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Osman Fevzi Olcay, Amasya Hâtıraları: Bildiklerim, Gördüklerim, İşittiklerim ile Amasya, simplified by Turan Böcekçi and Mehmet H. Seçkiner, Amasya Municipality Cultural Publications, Amasya 2009, pp. 24, 26, 32, 36, 50, 54-55.

Official sources

Other sources

Online sources