Samsa

Ingredients

• Plain flour500 g
• Warm water250 ml
• Lamb tail fat — melted150 g
• Lamb — chopped by hand500 g
• Onions — finely diced500 g
• Cumin seeds2 tsp
• Egg for glazing1
• Sesame seedsto taste
• Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Knead a dough from the flour, warm water and salt for ten minutes and rest it under film for half an hour.

   40 min

2. 2

   Roll the dough into a thin sheet, brush it with the melted fat, roll it into a tight log and chill it for half an hour.

   40 min

3. 3

   Mix the chopped meat with the onion, cumin and pepper. Salt it immediately before shaping, not before that.

   15 min

4. 4

   Cut the log into two-centimetre discs, set each cut side up and roll it into a round: the layers stay visible.

   15 min

5. 5

   Add the filling and seal into a triangle, pressing the seams firmly. Set them seam down, glaze with egg and scatter with sesame.

   20 min

6. 6

   Bake at 220 °C for ten minutes, then drop to 190 °C for twenty-five more, to a deep gold.

   35 min

About the dish

The dough for samsa is laminated with tail fat rather than butter. In the oven the fat renders between the layers and fries them from inside — hence a crisp flakiness rather than a soft one.

The meat is chopped by hand and there is as much onion by volume. The onion supplies all the juice: with mince and little onion the filling comes out dry.

The filling is not salted in advance. Salt draws water out of the onion, the dough softens before it ever reaches the oven, and the samsa leaks.

Worth knowing

• — The layers show in the cut, and that is how the dough is judged. A uniform cut means the fat was spread badly.
• — Tail fat can be replaced by clarified butter, but the layers come out softer. Vegetable oil gives no lamination at all.
• — Cover the baked samsa with a cloth for five minutes: the steam softens the top just enough that the crust stops shattering.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

580 kcal

Protein

24 g

Fat

34 g

Carbs

46 g

Useful for this recipe

• Oven Temperature Converter

More from Uzbekistan

• Uzbek plov — Rice steamed over a zirvak of lamb, carrot and onion. It is never stirred once it goes in.