Uzbek samsa (somsa) is a hearty baked dish of Uzbek cuisine for holidays and everyday life, with various fillings for every taste. In fact, samsa are baked puff pastries, but with a unique aroma and taste of the East. Samsa comes in different types and forms, there are many recipes and ways to prepare it.
Today samsa is made with meat (lamb, chicken, beef), with vegetables (pumpkin, potatoes, onions), as well as mushrooms, eggs, peas, herbs and even sweet fillings. The final wizard of samsa taste is the spices that enrich the taste of the filling - zira (zra), black / red pepper and sesame seeds (sprinkled with samsa on top).
Samsa recipes were significantly enriched after the conquest of the territory of Central Asia by the Russian Empire (1865-1917). So, for example, earlier in Central Asia, flour of the highest grade was not used, only then they began to import it for the European population from Russia, as well as potatoes, cabbage. But nevertheless, samsa remains an unsurpassed dish of Uzbek cuisine.
Previously, samsa was baked exclusively in a tandoor on charcoal - the taste and aroma of such samsa cannot be described in words! Tandoor samsas are baked even today - this is a special variety, here called "ordering samsa". It differs in size, taste, aroma, it contains a lot of fat tail fat, onions and, as a rule, whole pieces of minced meat (in ordinary samsa, the meat is often ground). For reasons of convenience and saving time, some types of samsa are now cooked in ovens using gas or electricity, but despite this, such samsa does not lose its taste.
For the preparation of samsa, plain or yeast puff pastry is mainly used. The dough recipe for samsa is about the same - flour, water, salt. There are recipes with the addition of melted fat and lard.
In the recipes of Uzbek cuisine, there are also sweet samsa stuffed with fruit jams. Sprinkle sweet samsa on top with sugar and sesame seeds - this dish is good to serve with tea. Whichever filling you choose for samsa is crispy and tender, it truly melts in your mouth. It is impossible to forget the taste of real Uzbek samsa!
Below is a classic samsa recipe:
For filling:
• 300 gr. fat tail fat, or beef (to taste);
• 300 gr. meat pulp. In the classic version, lamb, but you can use beef and chicken;
• 3 heads of large onions;
• Salt, pepper to taste;
• Zira;
• Sesame.
For the test:
• 4 glasses of wheat flour;
• 250 gr. boiled water;
• Salt.
You can use ready-made puff pastry, or prepare yourself. To prepare puff pastry for samsa, you should knead the dough from the indicated ingredients, divide it into several parts and put in the refrigerator for half an hour. Then roll out each part and grease with melted fat or margarine, roll each layer into a roll, which is then cut into several parts and roll out again, repeating the previous steps. The more times you repeat, the more layers you get in the dough.
Onions should be generously put into the minced meat for samsa, it will give juice, which will mix harmoniously with the taste of samsa filling.
How to sculpt samsa depends on which shape you have chosen for it - round, triangular or square. Cut the puff pastry rolled out to 2 mm into circles or squares 10x10 cm. Put the minced meat and a piece of fat tail fat in the middle (for an amateur, you can do without it), then you need to pinch the edges and put on a greased baking sheet with the seams down. For baking samsa in tandoor, the underside of samsa is moistened with salt water.
Before sending the samsas to the oven, they are smeared with egg yolk and sprinkled with sesame seeds. The cooking time depends on the minced meat. If these are vegetables (pumpkin, potatoes) - 10-15 minutes, meat samsa should be baked longer - 30-40 minutes.
