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Sambousak Afghani
Serves 6 Prep 40 min Cook 20 min Total 1 hr Type Side Origin Afghanistan

Sambousak Afghani

An Afghan triangular pastry: spiced lamb mince with leek and dried coriander, sealed in thin dough and deep-fried golden. Made by the dozen for parties.

Serves 6 Prep 40 minutes Cook 20 minutes Units Rate

Overview

Sambousak are Afghanistan's answer to the samosa: small triangular fried pastries with a spiced lamb filling, served as a starter or with afternoon tea alongside a green chutney. The filling is a quick fry-up of lamb mince with onion, leek, garlic, ginger, ground coriander, cumin, chilli and a hit of dried mint, then cooled completely before it goes into the wrappers. The dough work is the move: spring-roll pastry sheets get cut into long strips, then folded around a teaspoon of filling using the flag-fold (the strip wraps over the filling at a diagonal, then keeps folding triangle-over-triangle down its length until you have a closed triangle). Seal the seam with a flour-and-water paste, fry at 170°C for three minutes a side until amber. Eat warm with a mint-and-coriander chutney.

Ingredients

Filling

  • 400 g lamb mince
  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 1 onion (medium, very finely chopped)
  • 2 leeks (medium, white and pale-green only, finely chopped)
  • 4 garlic cloves (crushed)
  • 1 thumb fresh ginger (grated)
  • 1 ½ teaspoons ground cumin
  • 1 ½ teaspoons ground coriander
  • ½ teaspoon ground turmeric
  • ½ teaspoon Kashmiri chilli powder
  • ½ teaspoon dried mint
  • 2 tablespoons fresh coriander (chopped)
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • ½ teaspoon ground black pepper

Wrapping and frying

  • 20 spring-roll pastry sheets (cut into 8 x 25 cm strips)
  • 2 tablespoons plain flour (with 3 tablespoons cold water)
  • 1 litre vegetable oil for deep frying

To serve

Method

Stage 1 - Filling

  1. Heat the oil in a wide pan over medium-high heat.
  2. Brown the lamb hard, breaking up clumps; pour off excess fat.
  3. Add onion and leek; cook 8 minutes until softened and any leek liquid has evaporated.
  4. Stir in garlic, ginger and all spices (except dried mint); cook 1 minute.
  5. Splash in 80 ml stock; simmer 4 minutes until dry.
  6. Off the heat, stir in dried mint, fresh coriander, salt and pepper.
  7. Spread on a tray; cool completely.

Stage 2 - Fold

  1. Take a pastry strip. Place a teaspoon of cool filling at the bottom-right corner.
  2. Fold the corner up to the left edge to form a triangle.
  3. Continue folding the triangle up the length of the strip (flag-fold method).
  4. At the tail, brush with flour paste; tuck and seal.

Stage 3 - Fry

  1. Heat oil to 170°C in a deep pan.
  2. Fry in batches of 5-6, 3 minutes per side, until deep gold and crisp.
  3. Drain on kitchen paper.

Stage 4 - Serve

  1. Eat warm with mint chutney or garlic yogurt and lemon wedges.

Notes

  • Cool filling: Warm filling steams the pastry and breaks the seal in the fryer. Cool completely on a tray.
  • Leek finely chopped: Big pieces stay tough and fight the pastry. Fine chop softens fast in the cook.
  • Make ahead and freeze: Fold all 20; freeze on a tray; bag once frozen. Fry from frozen, adding 1 minute per side.

Storage

  • Refrigerate cooked 2 days; re-crisp at 200°C 6 minutes.
  • Freeze unfried up to 2 months.

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Samosa

Samosa

A stiff oil-rich plain-flour dough (maida) rolls thin and crisps in the fryer with the characteristic blistered surface. The filling is dry: boiled potato, peas, ginger, green chilli, cumin, coriander seed, garam masala and amchur (dried mango powder) for sourness. The pastry is rolled into ovals, halved into semicircles, formed into cones, stuffed, sealed and fried in two stages: low-temperature first to set the pastry without browning, then a hot finish to blister and crisp.

Snacks 1 hour 40 minutes Serves6

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