Samsa

Danya and I really like samsa, and I used to buy it in Russian stores. But samsa that is sold in the store near us is not very good (has too much fat in the filling), and I can’t eat it. So yesterday, since I have a lot of free time on my hands, I went through the trouble of cooking it at home. I think it came out pretty decent! The only thing that I didn’t like is that the dough came out a bit hard at the bottom, so I think that next time I’ll bake it at lower temperature. It probably makes sense to just buy a pastry dough in a supermarket.

I found the recipe on Kuking.net forums. Here is my free-style translation.

For the dough:

1. 1.1 pounds of flour (approximately 2.5 glasses)
2. 1 glass of cold water
3. 1 teaspoon of salt
4. 1 stick of butter (melted)
5. plus you’ll need one egg yolk and sesame seeds for decoration

For the filling:

1. 2 pounds of meat (lamb in original recipe, but I used beef)
2. 3-4 medium onions
3. 1 stick of butter
4. 1.3 teaspoon of salt
5. 1 teaspoon of cumin
6. 1 teaspoon of freshly grounded black pepper

The process:

1. In a small bowl beat an egg, add salt and water. Shift flour in a large bowl, slowly add liquid ingredients and make the dough. Cover the dough, and let it rest in the refrigerator for half an hour. Then divide it into four parts and roll each part on a floured board until it’s paper-thin.
   Brush the dough thoroughly with a melter butter, and then tightly roll up each piece. Put the rolled pieces on the floured plate, cover this plastic wrap and put into a freezer for half an hour (or in the refrigerator for a couple of hours).


2. Cut the meat into a very small pieces (if you freeze the meat for 30-45 minutes it will be easier to cut it). Chop the onions into thin small pieces, mix with the meat and spices.


3. Cut each roll of dough into pieces (I cut each one into 6 pieces). Roll each piece into a circle, put a piece of butter and 1-2 tablespoons of filling on it. Wrap it up into a triangle shape or any other shape (for a triangle — imagine an isosceles triangle inside the circle and wrap each side in) . Make sure there are no holes!


4. Put samsa on a greased baking sheet, brush each one with an egg yolk and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake for 40 minutes at 380 F.

We ate samsa with a simple eggplant salad, for which you’ll need 2 medium eggplants, 1 red sweet pepper, 2 medium tomatoes, 2 cloves of garlic, salt, cayenne pepper, olive oil and vinegar.

Cut eggplants and a pepper in half, bake them on a greased baking sheet until soft (45-60 minutes at 375F). Let them cool, then peel the skin off and chop into small pieces.

Grate tomatoes (except for skins) on a large grater, put them into a small pot and heat up. When tomatoes start to boil, turn the heat off. Let them cool and mix with eggplants. Add finely chopped garlic, salt, splash of vinegar, 2-3 teaspoons of olive oil and some cayenne pepper. Mix well, and put into a refrigerator for about an hour.