Turkish pasta with feta, yoghurt and dill

Turkish manti – lamb-filled pasta shapes – are served with yoghurt sauce. They’re laborious to make, but I love the basic idea of pasta with yoghurt and feta and so I came up with this instead. It takes a while for the onions to caramelise but you can pretty much leave them to cook.

Put the onions in a heavy-based pan with the olive oil, bay and cinnamon. Cook over a medium heat, stirring, until the onions start to turn golden, then add the garlic and cook for a further two minutes.

Add a splash of water, cover the pan, reduce the heat right down and leave until the onions are almost caramelised, about 35 minutes. Check on them every so often to give them a stir and ensure they’re not getting too dry.

When the onions are totally soft, remove the lid, season and boil until any excess liquid has evaporated. (If they haven’t caramelised very well you could add the 1tsp of sugar, but balance it by adding a good squeeze of lemon juice, too.)

Cook the tagliatelle until al dente in boiling salted water, usually a couple of minutes less than suggested on the packet.

When it is almost ready, add the yoghurt and milk or buttermilk to the onions and heat, but don’t boil. Drain the pasta and toss it into the onion pan with the dill.

Quickly melt the butter in a small saucepan and add the cayenne. Cook for about 20 seconds. Serve the pasta with the spiced butter drizzled on top and offer the feta cheese on the side.