Dish · caucasian
Samsa
Samsa is a hand pastry, here made with puff pastry, folded around seasoned ground lamb and onion and baked until the layers turn flaky and the filling stays juicy inside.
Where it comes from
It's related to the wider family of stuffed pastries across Central Asia and the Middle East, traditionally baked against the wall of a clay tandoor oven rather than a flat baking sheet.
What cooks argue about
The disagreement is over the fat in the filling: traditional versions use chunks of raw lamb fat that render inside the pastry for juiciness, while leaner modern versions skip it and end up drier.
Versions
Nobody has published a samsa here yet. When somebody cooks one from a video and publishes it, their version appears in this list, with a link back to the original.
What goes in it
Each one opens everything else made with it.
ground lamb
onion
cumin seeds