Mandu (), or mandoo, are dumplings in Korean cuisine. Mandu can be steamed, boiled, pan-fried, or deep-fried. The styles also vary across regions in the Korean Peninsula. Mandu were long part of Korean royal court cuisine, but are now found in supermarkets, restaurants, and snack places such as pojangmacha and bunsikjip throughout South Korea.
The name mandu is cognate with the names of similar types of meat-filled dumplings along the Silk Road in Central Asia, such as Uyghur manta (), Turkish ', Kazakh mänti (), Uzbek ', Afghan ', and Armenian mantÿi (). Chinese mántou () is also considered a cognate; historically, the term referred to meat-filled dumplings, but it now denotes steamed buns without filling.
Korean mandu encompasses both thin-wrapper dumplings, that are occasionally also called gyoja (), which are equivalent and cognate to Chinese jiÃÂozi () and Sino-Japanese gyà Âza (), and steamed bun-type dumplings, which are closer in form to Chinese bÃÂozi () and Mongolian buuz (). The latter are not referred to by the would-be cognate poja () in Korean; instead, they are usually called wang-mandu (), where wang means "king", as in "king-sized". Unlike Chinese bÃÂozi, which may contain either sweet or savoury fillings, Korean wang-mandu are savoury. Steamed buns with sweet fillings in Korean cuisine are known by other names, such as jjinppang and hoppang, and are not regarded as mandu.
Mandu are believed to have been first brought to Korea from the Yuan dynasty in the 14th century during the reign of the Goryeo dynasty.
The state religion of Goryeo was Buddhism, which discouraged the consumption of meat. The Mongolian incursion into Goryeo relaxed the religious prohibition against consuming meat, and mandu was among the newly imported dishes that included meat.
The first record of dumplings in Korea are seen in the text in the history text Goryeosa. In the text, dumplings were said to be made by a naturalized Khitan person during the reign of King Myeongjong of Goryeo.. When his father became ill, the doctor said, 'If you eat your son's meat, you can cure your illness.' Then, he cut off his own thigh meat, mixed it with other ingredients, made dumplings, and fed it to his father. After that, his father was cured. In 1185, the king heard the story of his filial piety and ordered the ministers to discuss how to reward him. He erected Hongsalmun Gate to commend him and recorded his into historical records.
Another possibility is mandu came to Korea at a much earlier period from the Middle East through the Silk Road. Historians point out many cuisines based on wheat, such as dumplings and noodles, which originated from Mesopotamia and gradually spread from there. It also spread east along the Silk Road, leaving many versions of mandu throughout Central and East Asia.
A Goryeo-era folk song, "Ssanghwajeom", tells a story of a mandu shop (ssanghwa meaning 'dumplings', and jeom meaning 'shop') run by a foreigner, probably of Central Asian origin.
If the dumplings are grilled or pan-fried, they are called gun-mandu (); when steamed, jjin-mandu (); and when boiled, mul-mandu (). In North Korea, mandu styles vary in different regions of the country. In particular, Pulmuone is releasing cheese dumplings, sweet seed dumplings with sugar and spicy dumplings.
Manduguk is a variety of Korean soup (guk) made with mandu in beef broth. In the Korean royal court, the dish was called byeongsi () while in the à ¬msik timibang, a 17th-century cookbook, it was called seokryutang ().
In Korean cuisine, mandu generally denotes a type of filled dumpling similar to the Mongolian buuz, a Tibetan-Nepalese momo and Turkic mantñ, and some variations are similar to the Chinese jiaozi and the Japanese gyoza.
They are similar to pelmeni and pierogi in some Slavic cultures.