By: ERKIN ESENGELDIEV
Staff Writer
Samsa is a crunchy pastry with a triangular shape stuffed with minced lamb (or beef, chicken, or more rarely, pork) onions, and fragrant spices, baked to perfection. As you’ll see below, there are many different variations of this pastry around the world but in this post, we’ll focus on the traditional Central Asian Samsa recipe.
Ingredients:
For The Dough
- 2 Cups Flour
- 1/3 Cup Ghee (melted)
- 1 Cup Water
- 1 Teaspoon Salt
For The Filling
- 1 lb Minced Lamb (Or Chicken/Mutton)
- 1 Garlic (Minced)
- 2 Medium-sized Onions (Chopped)
- 1 Tablespoon Grated Butter
- 1 Teaspoon Salt
- 1/2 Teaspoon Black Pepper
- 1/2 Teaspoon Corriander
- 1 Teaspoon Ground Cumin
Toppings
- 1 Tablespoon Sesame Seeds
Instructions
1. Add the flour to a mixing bowl.
2. Add the salt to the water and mix it until the salt dissolves.
3. Pour the water into the bowl and start kneading.
4. Shape the dough into a ball and let it rest for 20 minutes.
5. Combine the ingredients for the filling and leave them in the fridge for 30 minutes.
6. Add a little bit of flour to the surface and start to roll the dough.
7. Roll the dough into a thin rectangular.
8. Melt the ghee and place it on the baking sheet.
9. Starting from the edges, start rolling the rectangular dough like a cigar.
10. Once done, cut the dough into equal triangular pieces. In our recipe, we have 20 pieces but you can use as many as you want.
11. Go back to the triangular dough pieces and roll them into circles.
12. Add one tablespoon of filling to the circle.
13. Drag the two opposite sides of the dough and form a triangular.
14. Pinch two corners of the triangular and merge them together.
15. Add some parchment paper to your baking sheet and preheat your oven to 385 F° (200C°)
16. Repeat the process as many times as necessary.
17. Add the Samsa pastries to your baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes without changing the temperature. In the end, the pastries should have a golden color.
