Samosa

samosa (samoosa) are small, crisp, flaky pastries made in India, usually fried but sometimes baked. They are stuffed with a variety of fillings such as cheese, cheese and egg, minced meat with herbs and spices, vegetables such as potatoes, etc. Sweet fillings are also popular. Samosas are usually eaten as a snack, often as a street food.

The Indian version is merely the best known of an entire family of stuffed pastries or dumplings popular from Egypt and Zanzibar to C. Asia and W. China. Arab cookery books of the 10th and 13th centuries refer to these pastries as sanbusak (the pronunciation still current in Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon), sanbusaq, or sanbusaj, all reflecting the early medieval form of this Persian word: sanbosag. Claudia Roden (1968) quotes a poem by Ishaq ibn Ibrahim al-Mausili (9th century) praising sanbusaj. An ancient and widespread recipe for the dough in both India and the Near East is: ‘1 coffee cup of oil, 1 coffee cup of melted butter, 1 coffee cup of warm water, 1 teaspoon of salt. Add and work in as much flour as it takes.’

In the Middle East the traditional shape of sanbusak is a half-moon, usually with edges crimped or marked with the fingernails; but triangular shapes are also used. In India triangular and cone-shaped samosas are popular. In Afghanistan, where the name is sambosa, and in the Turkish-speaking nations, where it is called samsa (and variants), it is made both in half-moon shapes and triangles.

Sedentary Turkish peoples such as the Uzbeks and the people of Turkey itself usually bake their samsas, but nomads such as the Kazakhs fry them. Occasionally samsas will be steamed, particularly in Turkmenistan.

These pastries were still made in Iran as late as the 16th century, but they have disappeared from most of the country today, surviving only in certain provinces; e.g. the triangular walnut-filled sambüsas made in Larestan. However, the Iranians of C. Asia, the Tajiks, still make a wide range of sanbusas, including round, rectangular, and small almond-shaped ones.

In India, savoury samosas are usually served with a chutney of some sort. Sweet samosas are also popular, as in the Middle East. The usual Arab sanbusak is filled with meat, onions, and perhaps nuts or raisins, but sanbusak bil loz is stuffed with a mixture of ground almonds, sugar, and rose or orange blossom water. In Iraq and Arabia dates are a common filling; while in Afghanistan halva or raisins are often used.

In C. Asia, the versions made with rough puff pastry (waraqi såmsa, sambusai varaqi) are filled with meat. Those made with plain dough (leavened or unleavened) may be filled either with meat or other fillings such as diced pumpkin, chickpeas, herbs, wild greens, fried onions, mushrooms, or dried tomatoes.