In Asian countries, and even in our cities, interesting puff pastries baked in the oven are quite common. Most often they are given the shape of triangles or envelopes. In my opinion, the most delicious products are obtained in a hot tandoor. Can you guess what this wonderful pastry is?
Of course it's samsa! I don’t know about you, but I absolutely love the combination of a tender bread shell and a juicy filling. And you can wrap minced meat, chopped meat pieces, cheese and even vegetables and peas in mugs made of puff pastry or unleavened dough. Very often, onions, pumpkin, and potatoes are added to lamb or beef. These chicken pies are quite tasty.
The main secret of the delicacy lies in the dough. Whatever type it is, thanks to specially added oil, it turns into a crispy layered crust that is so pleasant to bite into.
It is not at all necessary to buy hot samsa at a market kiosk when you really want to taste this delicious pechevo. It is quite easy to prepare it yourself at home. And it will turn out much tastier - after all, you will not only fill it with selected meat, but also put your soul into it!
Samsa with minced meat made from puff pastry (step-by-step recipe)
Each chef always prepares such pastries to his own taste and according to his own secret recipes. The easiest option is to buy ready-made puff pastry and quickly make pies using it.
However, in fact, there are absolutely no special difficulties with creating an oily-flour mass. It is advisable for the workpiece to lie in the cold all night, then the layers will be visible as much as possible.
We will need:
- Meat pulp – 650 gr.
- Flour - 3 cups.
- Water – 1 glass.
- Butter – 150 gr.
- Onions – 2-3 pcs.
- Fresh egg, egg yolk - 1 pc.
- Starch - 3 tbsp. l.
- Milk – 1 tbsp. l.
- Granulated sugar – ½ tsp.
- Ground pepper, salt, favorite spices - to taste.
Preparation:
1. First of all, you need to sift the flour so that it becomes looser and saturated with oxygen. Send a fresh egg into it and season with a pinch of salt. Grind well so that the liquid white and yolk are completely mixed in the bulk ingredient, otherwise they will then “brew” from the hot water.
2. Heat the water and, while constantly stirring the egg-flour mixture, pour in boiling water in a thin stream.
3. Mix the mixture thoroughly using a paddle or spoon - we will get a kind of choux pastry. Once it becomes tolerable to your hands, place it on the work surface and knead it well with your hands.
4. As soon as the dough stops sticking to your hands and turns into an elastic, pleasant-to-touch ball, wrap it in cling film or a plastic bag. Place in the refrigerator for an hour, or in the freezer for 20-30 minutes.
5. Now the fun part begins - the process of achieving “layering”. Remove the workpiece from a cold place and divide into 5 equal parts. Immediately wrap one in a bag and put it in the refrigerator for now. Form small bricks from the remaining pieces and roll out into very thin layers. They must be the same shape, size and thickness.
To make rolling easier, the rolling pin and table surface should be dusted with starch.
6. Using a pastry brush, coat each layer with melted butter and place on top of each other. Trying to compress the layers as tightly as possible, roll into a roll. If you cut off its ends, you will get very beautiful sides, but this is not necessary.
Transfer this beauty to a powdered starch board and cover with film so that the top layer does not dry out. Place in the refrigerator until morning.
7. Pass the pulp through a meat grinder. It’s good if it has a little fat – this will give the filling more juiciness. You can also twist the onion at once, but most often it is chopped into small pieces using a knife.
It is better to use either beef or lamb for meat. Although now many of us cook with pork. But you should know that real Uzbek samsa is not prepared from pork.
Season with salt, ground pepper and your favorite spices (such as paprika, dried dill and a tiny pinch of chili). Mix with your hands until smooth.
8. Cut the finished puff pastry into equal pucks 1.5-2 cm thick. You can make circles directly from them and fill them, but remember about the set aside lump.
Make small balls from it, which should be placed in the center of each part cut off from the roll. This will help make the “bottom” of the samsa more durable and the juicy filling will not only not fall out, but also not leak.
9. Lightly dust the rolling pin with starch again and use it to roll out neat flat cakes. In the center you will get a kind of homogeneous core surrounded by layered edges.
10. Place 1-2 tablespoons of prepared minced meat and begin pinching the edges. First, lift the dough on both sides so that you get a corner and connect it with thick slivers.
11. Then fold the remaining semicircle towards the middle and, giving the shape of a triangle, form the blanks. Place them on a greased or parchment-lined baking sheet. Beat the yolk with a spoonful of milk and coat the future baked goods with this mixture.
12. All that remains is to put it in a preheated oven for forty minutes to bake at 200 degrees. Cool slightly and you can treat yourself to this crispy deliciousness.
After all, in fact, what else could be tastier than homemade baked goods just taken out of the oven!
Puff pastry for samsa
Real samsa is made using homemade dough prepared with your own hands. It is better not to use a ready-made store-bought product, otherwise the samosa will lose its original taste.
You can add butter, milk, and yeast to the main ingredients in the flour mass. Lamb fat can be replaced with beef fat. But housewives often replace fats with vegetable or butter. As a result, the dough is not very tender, and the layers have hard edges. Lamb fat wins - it hardens instantly, and the dough roll rolls up easily, without leakage or splashing. The taste of the samsa dough is very tender and pleasant.
Product composition:
- Wheat flour – kilogram;
- Water – 2 cups;
- Salt - a small spoon;
- Lamb fat – 60 g.
Now the recipe for samsa dough itself with photos:
- The ingredients are designed for preparing a large number of products. You can halve them to make half a serving. Flour also needs to be adjusted at your own discretion - you may need less of it;
- Dilute the salt in water and add flour until you knead a dense mass. It doesn't have to be tough;
- Knead the dough on the work surface until it does not stick to it. Cover with a cloth and let it sit for 15 minutes, then knead again until smooth;
- Let the workpiece “rest”, and at this time prepare the fat. Finely chop it and fry the cracklings;
- Pour the fat into a convenient container and let it cool slightly. But do not put it in a cool place - it may freeze. If you have half a serving of dough, then ½ of the fat will be enough for you;
- Divide the dough mixture into three equal balls. Mix a little and let sit under the cloth for another 10 minutes;
- Roll all the balls into thin layers (1 mm). This is a difficult process, because our mass is very dense and in order to roll it out, you need to use maximum effort;
- Grease the first layer with lamb fat, preferably unsalted. Let it sit for a little while so that the fat hardens;
- Place a second, well-rolled flatbread on the bottom flatbread, brush with fat again and repeat this with the third rolled out flatbread. You will receive a three-layer greased dough, where each layer is one on the other;
- Roll this product into a tight roll. If you want to bake samsa right away, let your roll sit for a while, then feel free to cut it into pieces;
- And if you need to postpone preparing samsa for some time, then roll the roll in the shape of a snail, wrap it in film and put it in the refrigerator. You can make several snails. Cold baking mixture is much better and easier to roll out and cut for such a delicious dish.
Preparing samsa at home is not at all difficult and will not take much of your time. The process is absolutely not troublesome, but what a wonderful result. The puff pastry product turns out soft, delicate and simply melts in your mouth.
Samsa with chicken made from homemade puff pastry baked in the oven
Puff pastry can be prepared in another simpler and faster way. It will be perfectly complemented by tender chicken pulp. Children really like this samsa.
Despite the large amount of butter, the baked goods are still quite light and suitable for a diet snack.
We will need:
- Chicken leg – 550 gr.
- Flour – 250 gr.
- Butter – 100 gr.
- Water – 100 ml. + 1 tbsp. l.
- Onion – 2 pcs.
- Egg yolk – 1 pc.
- Sesame seeds – 3 tbsp. l.
- Salt – 1/3 tsp. + to taste.
- Ground black pepper, spices - to taste.
Preparation:
1. Sift flour into a bowl and mix it with fine salt (1/3 tsp). Cool a piece of butter well, and then, periodically dipping it in flour, turn it into large shavings, passing it through a grater. Stir with a spoon so that the curls do not start to melt.
2. Pour in ice water and knead the dough very quickly. You should not knead it with your hands for too long, so that the heat does not cause small oil inclusions to flow. Immediately pack in a plastic bag and place in the freezer for 20-30 minutes.
3. Remove the skin from the chicken legs and cut off the meat. Chop the pulp into centimeter cubes. You can also take the breast, but the meat from the legs turns out to be a little fattier, which means the filling in the finished dish will be richer.
4. Chop a couple of large peeled onions with a knife as finely as possible. Having released its caustic juice, it will make the meat softer and also add juiciness.
5. Combine chopped meat and vegetables, add salt and pepper and, if desired, add finely chopped herbs. Mix well and then leave to infuse and marinate in the refrigerator.
6. Take out the cold dough and knead it lightly. Quickly form 1-2 elongated thick “sausages” and cut them into equal pieces. There will be approximately 15 pieces.
7. Lightly sprinkle the table with flour and roll out thin ten-centimeter rounds. You shouldn’t make them very thick so that the crust doesn’t turn out very tough. But thin ones won’t work either - they will burst and the filling will fall out.
8. Place a couple of tablespoons of chicken onion mixture in the center of the finished tortillas. It is better to lay it out in a lump so that there is a couple of centimeters of dough left free from the filling.
9. Carefully lifting the edges on three sides, form blanks and carefully pinch. To prevent them from “floating”, they should not be left in the heat for a long time.
10. Turn on the oven and preheat to 180 degrees, and in the meantime cover a baking sheet with parchment and place the triangles on it, seams down.
To make the baked goods more rosy and beautiful, you need to brush them with an egg mixture.
To do this, combine the yolk with a spoon of cold water and beat, and then apply it to the dough with a brush. Sprinkle a pinch of sesame seeds on top. It is better if it is white, otherwise the black grains will look like burnt grains.
11. Place the samsa in a hot oven and in 45 minutes it will be ready. It is best served while still hot, but not scalding.
Although it is already delicious, you can still serve an additional cup at home with your favorite sauce or ketchup.
Real Uzbek puff samsa with meat
Ever since our student days, we often bought very tasty samsa from Uzbek shops. It is prepared from lamb with the addition of finely chopped fat tail fat. Thanks to this, the filling turns out juicy, appetizing and very satisfying.
I really wanted to cook such delicious triangles at home, but something always turned out a little wrong. And then one of the women involved in Uzbek baking revealed some secrets. Now we only eat this Asian delicacy when we make it ourselves.
We will need:
- Lamb pulp – 800 gr.
- Fat tail fat – 200 gr.
- Butter – 100 gr.
- Flour - 4 cups.
- Water – 1 glass.
- Onions – 2-3 pcs.
- Egg – 1 pc.
- Starch – 2-3 tbsp. l.
- Salt, herbs, spices, ground pepper - to taste.
Preparation:
1. Pour warm boiled water into a deep bowl. Add a fresh egg, melted butter (50 g) and a pinch of salt. Using a fork or blender, beat until smooth. Then, adding flour in parts, knead the elastic dough.
2. Cut it into 4 equal parts and roll them into balls. Cover with a clean towel and let them rest for a third of an hour. It is not necessary to put it in the refrigerator, because we will make puff pastry later.
3. Sprinkle the table with starch and roll out the first bun on it into a thin, elongated layer just a couple of millimeters thick. Immediately brush it with melted butter and let it harden a little.
Then roll out the next lump into a similar thin “cornerless rectangle” and cover the previous one with it. If necessary, you can slightly pull it up with your hands so that the layers match only in size. And again coat with oil and let it harden a little. Do this two more times with the remaining dough balls.
4. Roll these four layers, stacked on top of each other and coated, into a tight roll. And you can twist it into a snail and cover it again with a towel so as not to dry out.
If the kitchen is not very hot, then you can leave it on the table, but if it is more than 20 degrees, then it is better to put it in the refrigerator for now.
5. It is better to take lean lamb - the pulp is without seeds and hard veins. Cut into small pieces - centimeter cubes or the same thin bars.
6. To make the filling rich and at the same time juicy, we need tail fat. It should be chopped very, very finely so that during baking it releases its juices as much as possible and becomes completely invisible in food.
7. Peel the onions and chop them into thin strips or sticks about a couple of centimeters long. But you can chop it much smaller.
8. Combine onion, fat tail and meat cuts, season with salt, pepper and your favorite spices. For greater aroma, you can add chopped fresh herbs (dill, cilantro, parsley).
Mix well, “cheating” a little with your fingers, so that the ingredients better saturate each other with their juices.
9. Carefully unrolling the “snail” of dough, cut off small pucks (≈ 2 cm thick) from it. Lay them cut or sideways on a table powdered with starch. Immediately use your fingers to slightly break them into small cakes, and then use a rolling pin to roll them into full circles.
If you are afraid that the “pucks” will spread out, you can put them in the freezer for a quarter of an hour and when cooled they will definitely not “disassemble” into ribbons, but will roll out in an even layer.
10. Place 1-2 tablespoons of lamb filling onto the dough pieces and form neat triangular or square sacks. Carefully pinch them and slightly press the edges to the sides so that they do not puff up.
11. Cover a baking sheet with baking paper and place the pieces on it, whole side up. If desired, you can brush with beaten egg and sprinkle with sesame seeds to make the crust golden and appetizing.
12. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees and bake for 40-45 minutes. Then transfer the finished hot samsa to a large dish and cover with a towel for about 15 minutes so that the crust softens a little.
Best served with green tea or compote. But it will be just fine with cool milk!
Samsa with pumpkin from ready-made puff pastry
There is not always meat in the refrigerator. But be sure to eat some vegetables. You can easily prepare vegetarian samsa. The most delicious, healthy and juicy is obtained from pumpkin. Only you need to chop it into pieces with a knife. If you use a grater or food processor, the result will be too fine and the filling will simply disintegrate.
And to make the baked goods different from sweet pies, you can add sautéed onions to the pumpkin. Lamb tail will add a subtle meaty note.
By the way, this filling is often found in Asia, but always with a pleasant spice from ground or fresh chili.
We will need:
- Puff pastry – 500 gr.
- Pumpkin pulp – 400 gr.
- Lamb tail fat – 50 gr.
- Onions – 2-3 pcs.
- Egg – 1 pc.
- Sunflower oil – 2 tbsp. l.
- Sesame seeds – 1 tbsp. l.
- Ground black pepper, salt, sugar, cumin, dry dill - to taste.
Preparation:
1. Peel a piece of pumpkin and remove seeds. First cut the orange pulp into slices 1 cm thick, and then crumble them into sticks or cubes.
2. Chop medium-sized onions, peeled, into thin quarter rings or small strips. But the fat tail fat must be cut into very small pieces so that they have time to render and do not stand out from the vegetable mass.
3. Heat the oil in a saucepan and add the onion. After about 3-4 minutes it will become transparent, which means you can add pumpkin and fat to it. Mix well and after a couple of minutes add salt, add a pinch of sugar, pepper and season with cumin and dry dill.
4. After another 3 minutes, the pumpkin will become a little softer and you can turn off the heating. You should definitely try for salt - if there is not enough salt, the filling will turn out a little bland, so it’s worth adding a little. Cool to room temperature.
5. It is most convenient to roll defrosted or fresh puff pastry into a roll and then cut it into equal pieces. Just be sure to roll such a “sausage” more tightly and shake it a little with your hands so that a continuous layered texture is formed from the rolled up layer.
6. As in previous recipes, proceed as follows: turn each pellet into a thin circle and place the filling in the center.
7. Lift the edges of the dough on three sides onto the pumpkin mound and pinch them so that you get a beautiful triangular samosa. Repeat the shaping process with all other filled rounds.
8. Place the raw dough on a parchment-lined baking sheet and brush with well-beaten fresh egg. For beauty, you can sprinkle the middle with a little sesame seeds. Although they usually mark different types of filling, so as not to confuse which baked goods contain which contents.
9. Having preheated the oven to 190 degrees, place a baking sheet inside and bake the triangles exuding an appetizing aroma for only 20-25 minutes.
For such samsa, the ideal companion would be tomato sauce or hummus. And when cooled, it will be delicious with sweet tea or jelly.
From purchased dough
Cooking from frozen, yeast-free puff pastry purchased in a store is very quick and easy. All that remains for the housewife to do under these conditions is to wrap the filling with minced meat and seal the edges. If you purchase store-bought minced meat for this, you can make such traditional national pies in just 15-20 minutes.
Ingredients for making puff samsa:
- Yeast-free purchased puff pastry – 1 kg.
- Minced meat – 650 g.
- Onions 200 g.
- Seasoning and salt - to taste.
- Egg for brushing.
- Sesame for sprinkling.
KBJU for 100g puff samsa:
- Calorie content – 350 kcal.
- Proteins – 11 g.
- Fats – 24 g.
- Carbohydrates – 18 g.
Recipe for making puff samsa:
- Add all the spices and salt to the store-bought minced meat. Also put finely chopped onion there. Mix everything until a homogeneous mass is obtained.
- Roll the dough into a large cylinder. Then cut it crosswise. After this, roll out each circle with a rolling pin to a diameter of approximately 18 cm.
- Place the minced meat in the center and wrap the dough on three sides into the center. Carefully pinch the edges with a mold, very tightly, so that the juice does not leak out of the meat during cooking.
- Once you have formed a certain number of products, place them on a baking sheet, brush with egg, sprinkle with seeds and place in a preheated oven. Such national products are baked at a temperature of 190°C for 40 minutes. It is important to wait this time so that you get a tasty triangular samsa and its filling is completely cooked.
Step-by-step recipe for making samsa with Suluguni cheese
A very original snack is made from cheese with puff pastry. They are used to make twisted sticks for beer and pretzels for tea. But samsa with melted tender brine or hard-melting cheese variety is perhaps the most delicious crispy “pie”.
This kind of baking with smoked sausage product turns out quite interesting, but my household likes it the most with Sulugini.
Previously, I couldn’t even think that puff pastry could be made using vinegar, but my friend shared this recipe with me. Now I use it periodically when I have only an hour of time left.
We will need:
- Water – 200 ml.
- Suluguni – 100 gr.
- Butter – 60 gr.
- Flour – 2.5 cups.
- Vinegar – 1.5 tsp.
- Salt - to taste.
Preparation:
1. Combine cooled boiled water with vinegar. Dilute a pinch of salt in this acidified water. Add melted butter, which will immediately set into small droplets while stirring. Add flour and mix well. Knead the dough and roll it into a rope.
Place in the freezer for 15 minutes, and then immediately begin cutting. Cut the “sausage” into equal pieces and roll them into thin round cakes, 10-12 centimeters in diameter.
2. Suluguni can be cut into plastic pieces a centimeter thick, but it is better to chop it into thin chips on a medium grater - this way it will melt better and the baking will be more airy.
3. Distribute all the cheese curls among the puff pastries and shape them into triangular pies. Be sure to seal the edges well and press them slightly to the side so that the samsa can be conveniently laid with the seam down.
4. Turn on the oven so that it warms up to 200 degrees. In the meantime, arrange the preparations on a baking sheet. You can cover it with paper so that the dough does not burn on the bottom.
5. For such a snack, 15-20 minutes in the oven will be enough, because only the dough should be prepared, and the cheese is already ready and will only melt from the temperature, which is what we need.
Having cooled a little, the filling of the samsa will stretch out in pleasant strings, and when completely cold it will harden into a continuous tasty layer.
Making triangles
Let's figure out how to sculpt a samsa into a triangle. The base of a triangular samsa is a rounded piece of dough that is rolled into a flat cake. The filling is placed in the center. It is better to form it close to a triangle. Then mentally divide the circumference of the cake into 3 equal arcs. One of these arcs needs to be taken by the middle and wrapped over the filling. The resulting angle is pressed with your finger. Then you need to fold the second arc in the same way, and wrap the resulting corner so that when the samosa is baked, the juice is preserved inside. Then wrap the last arc over the pie and form the base, ironing the moistened edges with your hand and pinching the corners. For baking, the pie is placed on the side on which the dough was sealed.
If you want beautiful ribbed edges, you don’t need to overlap the dough, but pinch them. A regular pinch will produce three ribs converging in the center. To make the seam stronger, you can use the methods of beautiful pinching, which we will give below.
Samsa with chicken and potatoes from ready-made dough
If you like chicken chicken, then baking with poultry and potatoes should also please you with its taste. If you cook it from ready-made dough, this will significantly reduce the cooking time.
All that remains is to “bundle” the filling, fill the puff pastries with it, and then bake.
We will need:
- Potatoes, chicken pulp, unleavened puff pastry – 700 g each.
- Butter – 40 gr.
- Onion – 2 pcs.
- Flour – 2-3 tbsp. l.
- Ground black pepper, salt, sesame seeds - to taste.
- Ready dough.
Preparation:
1. While the puff pastry is defrosting, which can be used either fresh or yeast, you should start preparing the meat filling.
Cut the pulp into small pieces. It is best to cut it from chicken drumsticks - this is where the softest and juiciest part of the bird is. But you shouldn’t use either bone or skin for filling. All you need is tender meat.
2. Peeled potatoes should be chopped into centimeter cubes. The bulbs should be chopped into thin half-rings, or their halves. Pour them into a cup with chopped meat.
3. To ensure that the vegetables, and the poultry too, are well baked and not dry, add softened butter crumbled into pieces. Be sure to add salt and sprinkle with your favorite pepper. You can even add a pinch of chili for a richer taste.
4. Mix all the filling ingredients well so that they are evenly redistributed among themselves - then it will be easier to spread this mixture and the samsa will be filled with approximately the same ratio of potatoes to chicken.
5. Cut the melted layers of puff pastry into equal squares and roll them with a rolling pin so that they become 3-4 mm thick and at least double in other dimensions. Place a couple of spoons of filling on them.
6. Next, you can roll them either in the form of envelopes, or manage to give them the shape of triangles. Connect the edges very carefully so that they do not separate under the influence of temperature. Brush over them with a brush dipped in water and sprinkle a small amount of sesame seeds on top.
7. Bake in the oven preferably at 180 degrees for half an hour. As soon as the surface turns into a golden crispy crust, you can check the readiness of the contents of one of the “pies” by breaking it or piercing it with a toothpick.
The delicacy turns out so aromatic and juicy that it flies off the dish in a matter of minutes.
