Varieties of traditional Uzbek pies. Preparation of puff pastry, regular and “quick” meat filling, molding and baking. Recipe with a photo of Uzbek samsa in a hurry.
Contents of the recipe with a photo:
- Ingredients
- Step by step preparation of Uzbek samsa
- Video recipes
Uzbek samsa are traditional national pies made from unleavened puff pastry with different fillings, the most common are meat or pumpkin.
The most ancient type of this pastry is tandoor samsa, which Uzbek housewives baked without any pallets or trays in tandoor ovens. The molded pie was glued to the hot wall of the tandoor, where it was baked in this way. Of course, now such a method of cooking is as rare as real ancient hearths, especially since in the most ordinary home oven you can cook samsa just as well - except perhaps without a smoky aroma.
Samsa is a very simple dish, born in villages, not palaces, so it consists of common, affordable and inexpensive foods. Unleavened dough is kneaded from flour, water and salt, often even without eggs; when cutting (layering), vegetable oil or any other fat is used.
In the Fergana Valley, famous for its melons, samsa with pumpkin is very popular: the vegetable for the filling is chopped, mixed with onions and finely chopped fat tail fat, seasoned with cumin, coriander and peppers, and fresh herbs are added.
The stuffing of minced meat with onions and spices was traditionally most often made from lamb, but now any other is allowed, up to poultry and even pork. The main thing is that the meat should not be too lean, then the finished pies will be very juicy.
The shape of the samsa is most often triangular, but if the hostess prepares pies with several different fillings at once, they are molded into square, round and oblong so as not to get confused.
Today we will cook Uzbek samsa at home in a hurry, that is, not "from scratch", but using semi-finished products: already ground minced meat and ready-made unleavened dough. For the classic Uzbek samsa recipe, meat is chopped with a sharp knife into raisin-sized pieces. If the meat is lean, be sure to add fat, most often finely chopped fat tail fat. With this method of grinding, moisture loss will be minimal, and the filling will turn out to be more juicy.
We use ready-made mixed coarse minced meat, which needs to be mixed with onions and seasoned, this is a perfectly acceptable option for quick baking. The onion in the filling should be at least a third. A couple of cloves of garlic are sometimes added to lamb, in season, if possible and desired, a handful of chopped fresh parsley, cilantro or green onions.
- Caloric content per 100 g - 219 kcal.
- Servings - 8 pieces 100 g each
- Cooking time - 1 hour
Ingredients:
- Unleavened dough (filo is possible) - 400 g
- Mixed minced meat (beef + pork) - 300 g
- Onions - 160 g
- Zira - 1 tsp
- Pepper mixture - 1 tsp
- Coarse sweet paprika - 1 tsp
- Adyghe salt (stone with herbs) - 1 tsp.
- Vegetable oil - 1 tablespoon
- Flour for tanning - 2-3 tbsp.
- Egg (yolk) for lubrication - 1 pc.
Step-by-step preparation of Uzbek samsa "in a hurry"
1. Onions should be finely chopped with a knife or chopped with a blender.
2. Add chopped onion, salt, sweet paprika and cumin, chopped in a mortar, and a mixture of peppers to the defrosted minced meat.
3. Knead the minced meat and set aside for a few minutes in a cool place for ripening, and we ourselves proceed to the dough. The basis for puffed samsa in Uzbek cuisine is the simplest unleavened dough, it can be kneaded from 500 g of flour, 200 ml of water, one egg and a pinch of salt. But we already have ready-made dough, so we do not start with kneading, but from the moment when the already well-aged and ripe dough is taken out of the refrigerator and prepared for sandwiching.
4. To begin with, on a floured board, pull a piece of dough straight with your hands, as far as you can, into a more or less rectangular layer. Sprinkle the dough with flour, fold it in four and again begin to stretch it with our hands. It is advisable to repeat this operation at least a couple of times, this is a kind of preliminary "dry" stratification.
5. Next, the dough piece, in which the layered structure is already beginning to appear, is rolled out into a thin, almost transparent sheet. Pour vegetable oil onto the dough and spread it with a thin layer with your hand over the entire surface of the cake. We roll up a neat tight roll with the oiled side inward.
6. With a sharp knife we divide the sausage into portioned pieces, this amount of dough is enough for us for 8 pies. We pinch the resulting blanks from one end. The layered structure is clearly visible on the cut of the dough. We roll each blank into a thin cake about the size of a pie plate.
7. Divide the minced meat into 8 equal parts and lay out the juices.
8. Samsa from quick puff pastry is very easy to form. Cover the minced meat ball with the free end of the dough, press it lightly. We unfold the workpiece by 120 degrees, bend the excess dough in the corner inward, overlap the free third of the cake. We again turn the workpiece 120 degrees and finally form a triangular patty, slightly flattening it with the palm of our hand. Samsa is ready, it will hold up perfectly, will not stick out and will not leak when baking.
9. Cover the baking sheet with a silicone mat, lightly sprinkle with flour and lay out the pies with the seam down. Lubricate the samsa with a beaten egg or yolk for tinting and send it to an oven preheated to 180-200 degrees. Bake for 20-25 minutes until browning.
Ready-made samsa even in this "express version" is juicy, tender, puff pastry slightly crunches on the teeth and literally melts on the tongue.
Samsa is good both hot and cold, with herbs, vegetable salad, a bowl of shurpa or just a bowl of fresh green tea.
Well, and finally, a few little culinary tricks. If after cooking dumplings, strudel or lasagna, a piece of unleavened dough remains, wrap it in cling film and send it to freeze. It can be pulled out at any time, defrosted and used to prepare many different dishes, including express samsa.
If the minced meat seemed dry after mixing, it is easy to fix it by adding a little lard, butter, or just a couple of tablespoons of fatty sour cream. Such methods of correcting the filling work well in pies, pasties, they are also suitable for samsa.
Instead of a silicone mat, you can use baking paper, parchment, or just lightly grease a baking sheet with vegetable oil and dust it with flour.
Video recipes for Uzbek samsa
1. How to cook Uzbek samsa:
2. Recipe for cooking Uzbek samsa:
