Hanum

Samarkand-Bukhara Uzbek·Medium·27 min active + 1 hour 28 min resting

Steamed pastry roll with potato-onion filling, sliced like a jelly roll and served with sour cream and tomato sauce.

Central Asian home-style dish; the name comes from the Turkic/Persian khanum (lady, mistress of the house). Popular tradition holds it was devised by a housewife as a fast shortcut to manti, earning the nickname 'lazy manti' — instead of pleating each dumpling, the filling is spread on a sheet of dough and rolled up to steam. Usually meatless, cheap and filling, it long served as a lean-month substitute for manti.

Bukhara version adds carrot and 30 g lamb fat; Tashkent version stays plain potato. Restaurant Mir near Khast-Imam serves it with kaymak (clotted cream); the slicing rule is 2 cm thick — thinner unrolls.

Spiral cross-section, pale dough wrapping orange-tinted potato. Tender chew, sweet from onion caramelized in lamb fat (or butter on fasting days). Tomato-onion sauce sharpens, suzma sour cream rounds — eat one slice with each.

Dough rolled paper-thin, spread with grated potato and onion across a single sheet, rolled into a 5-cm log, coiled into the manti (kaskan) steam basket. Steam 45 min; slice while hot — a cold roll crumbles when cut.

Variations

Potato hanum (the everyday standard), pumpkin hanum (autumn, sweeter), Bukhara meat-fat hanum (richer), lamb-mince hanum for festivals, and a green-herb version with cilantro, dill and spinach.

On the Palate

Where Hanum sits in the Uzbek flavor cloud

Ingredients

Serves 4

300 g (11 oz)All-Purpose Flour

3 medium (16 oz)Potato

thinly sliced

2 large (11 oz)Onion

thinly sliced

60 g (2 ⅛ oz)Lamb Fat

rendered or solid, for filling

4 tbsp (¼ cups)Smetana

to serve

1 tsp (⅙ oz)Salt

How it's made

5 steps · 27 min active + 1 hour 28 min waiting

1
38 min
Make dough: 500 g flour + 250 ml warm water + 30 ml oil + 5 g salt; knead 8 min; rest 30 min.
Watch out
Knead until the dough stops sticking and springs back when poked — under-kneaded dough tears when you roll it paper-thin.
2
10 min
Mix filling: 4 grated potatoes + 2 finely chopped onions + 50 g butter + 1 tsp salt + black pepper.
3
12 min
Roll dough thin into large rectangle; spread filling evenly; roll up like jelly roll.
Watch out
Roll until you can almost see your hand through the sheet — too thick and the middle stays doughy after steaming.
4
50 min
Coil into greased steamer; steam over boiling water 50 min.
Watch out
Coil with a little gap between the rings — packed tight, the center never cooks through.
5
5 min
Slice into 4 cm rounds; serve with sour cream and tomato sauce.
Watch out
Slice while it's still steaming hot — let it cool and the roll crumbles under the knife.

Archive tool suggestions — not reviewed

These legacy suggestions have not been evidence-reviewed and are not presented as required tools.

Saucepan

Round metal pot, 14-26 cm diameter, with vertical walls and a long handle, designed for sauces, soups, oatmeal, rice, boiled vegetables. The vertical walls minimize evaporation (vs. a sauté pan). Sizes: 1 qt for melting butter, 2-3 qt for sauces, 4 qt for soups. Stainless-steel-clad aluminum or copper is best for conduction; cast-iron is too thick for delicate sauces.

Techniques

Steaming