This sambusa recipe is in the top 3 recipes in my recipe book. I could make this sambusa every day if I had the time, and no one in my family would object. It’s that good. Flaky shells are crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. The meat filling is nicely textured, juicy and flavorful. Make sure to make the full batch – these puppies have a tendency to magically vanish in the blink of an eye. This recipe was inspired by the traditional sambusa (also called samsa) made in Uzbekistan and other Central Asian countries. The difference is that it’s a lot less fatty and is baked in the kitchen oven instead of the wood fired tandir oven.
I tried the authentic tandir oven baked sambusa, flavored with smoke, and it was heavenly. I’d been experimenting for quite some time trying to create something similar in my kitchen, until I came up with something slightly different, but it was 100% percent to my satisfaction. It’s superb. I will even go as far as to say that I actually prefer this one to the traditional sambusa.
The dough in this sambusa recipe is very traditional: one part flour, half-part water and salt. The dough will be stiff and hard to knead, and that’s exactly how you want it to be. Nowadays they add an egg or two to make kneading easier. I got tempted once and added eggs. The resulting dough was more supple and easier to work with, but sambusa lost the crispness that I value so highly.
The best way to prepare the dough is to dump flour, water and salt into a mixing bowl and let the mixer do the job. You must use a powerful, commercial grade mixer though. A wimpy stand mixer will choke. You don’t want to kill your mixer. If using a commercial grade stand mixer, mix on low with a dough hook for 5 minutes until the dough comes together in a ball.
If mixing by hand, combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and let sit for 15 minutes. This will allow the flour to hydrate and become more supple and pliable. Then knead for 5 minutes. The job will be much easier that way. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for at least half an hour.
Traditionally Uzbek meat sambusa is made with lamb meat and tail fat. A lot of tail fat. And a lot of onions. This fat and onions, which release water during baking, is what makes sambusa juicy and moist. While it tastes amazingly delicious, it’s very greasy. My sambusa recipe is a leaner variant made with beef. Chuck works the best as it has the right beef to fat ratio and is a very flavorful cut. Oftentimes I remove half of the fat from chuck to make my sambusa even leaner and this does not make it taste any worse.
Meat for sambusa must be finely diced with a knife. It takes some effort, but this is very important. If you grind the meat you will get a dumpling, you don’t want that. Diced meat gives sambusa its peculiar texture and juiciness as diced meat retains water better than ground meat. Add finely chopped onions, salt and spice to the meat and the filling is ready. Traditional sambusa recipe calls for an equal volume of chopped onions to the meat. Through experimentation I found that about 3/4 volume is optimal for my taste. If this sounds like too much of onions, it’s not. Not enough onions will result in dry sambusa. During the bake the onions will become translucent and mildly flavored. You will barely notice them when you eat the sambusa. Cumin is one of the traditional spices added to sambusa, as well as black pepper. I am not a big fan of cumin, so I use black pepper and coriander instead for flavor. If you prefer, you can substitute coriander for cumin.
After half an hour or more of relaxing the dough will become supple and pliable. Place it on a lightly floured surface and stretch into a 12 x 8 inch rectangle. Roll out the dough as thinly as possible, about 1/16″ thick. Pour 3 tablespoons of olive or vegetable oil over the dough and spread evenly over the entire surface.
Slowly roll the dough into a fairly tight log, making sure there are no air pockets.
Cut the log into about 1-1/4 inch cylinders. You should end up with about 16 of them.
Take the cylinder, tuck the end underneath as shown below.
Place the cylinder on the lightly floured work surface and press firmly with the palm of your hand.
Roll each cylinder into a 5 inch circle.
Place a handful of the meat filling (about 3 ounces) in the center of the circle.
Fold the circle in half and pinch to seal as show below to make a triangle.
Place on a large baking sheet seam side down, brush with egg wash, sprinkle with sesame seeds and bake.
