Recipe
Samsa
Flaky pastry filled with lamb and onion, baked on the walls of a clay tandir.
- Time
- 2 h
- Serves
- 6
The story
Samsa is the snack of every bazaar and bus station, sold hot from the same clay tandir oven that bakes the bread. The baker slaps the raw pastries onto the inner wall of the oven, where they bake in a few minutes in the blast of heat, and hooks them out with a long scoop.
The name belongs to a family of pastries — sambusa, samosa — that has travelled between Iran and India for a thousand years. In Uzbekistan the classic filling is lamb and onion, but it changes with the seasons: pumpkin in autumn, fresh greens in spring, when ko'k somsa appears in every market.
How it tastes
A shattering, layered crust with a golden, slightly smoky top, and inside a very juicy filling of lamb, its fat and plenty of onion, sharp with black pepper and cumin. It is best eaten straight from the oven, carefully.
Ingredients
Serves 6
For the dough:
- 500 g plain flour
- 250 ml warm water
- 1 tsp salt
- 100 g soft butter, for layering
For the filling and top:
- 600 g lamb with some fat, diced very small with a knife
- 3 onions, finely chopped
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 tsp ground black pepper
- 1½ tsp salt
- 1 egg yolk
- Sesame seeds or nigella seeds
Method
- Knead the flour, water and salt into a firm, smooth dough. Cover and rest for 30 minutes.
- Roll the dough out very thin, spread it with the soft butter and roll it up tightly into a long log. Chill for 30 minutes — this gives the layers.
- Mix the lamb, onions, cumin, pepper and salt with 2 tablespoons of cold water.
- Cut the log into 12 pieces. Stand each on its cut end and roll it into a circle, thinner at the edges.
- Put a heaped spoonful of filling in the middle and fold the edges over into a triangle, pinching the seams well.
- Place seam-side down on a lined tray, brush with egg yolk and sprinkle with seeds.
- Bake at 220 °C for 25–30 minutes, until deep golden.
