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Yemeni Sambusa
Serves 6 Prep 40 min Cook 20 min Total 1 hr Type Side Origin Yemen

Yemeni Sambusa

Yemen's samosa: small triangular fried pastries filled with spiced minced lamb, onion and chilli. The traditional Ramadan iftar snack.

Serves 6 Prep 40 minutes Cook 20 minutes Units Rate

Overview

Lamb mince fries with onion, garlic, cumin, coriander and chilli to a dry savoury filling. Spring-roll pastry sheets are cut into long strips; a teaspoon of cooled filling goes on a corner; the strip folds into a small triangular packet via the flag-fold method. Sealed with flour-water paste; deep-fried 170°C until shatteringly golden. Eaten with a wedge of lemon and sahawiq.

Ingredients

Filling

  • 400 g lamb mince (or beef)
  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 1 onion (medium, very finely chopped)
  • 4 garlic cloves (crushed)
  • 1 thumb fresh ginger (grated)
  • 1 ½ teaspoons ground cumin
  • 1 ½ teaspoons ground coriander
  • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ½ teaspoon ground cardamom
  • ½ teaspoon ground turmeric
  • 1 fresh green chilli (very finely chopped)
  • 3 tablespoons fresh coriander (chopped)
  • 3 tablespoons fresh parsley (chopped)
  • ½ lemon (juice)
  • salt
  • pepper

Wrapping and frying

  • 24 spring-roll pastry sheets (cut into 8 x 25 cm strips)
  • 2 tablespoons plain flour (with 3 tablespoons water)
  • 1 litre vegetable oil for deep frying
  • Lemon wedges and sahawiq, to serve

Method

Stage 1 - Filling

  1. Heat the oil in a wide pan over medium-high heat.
  2. Brown the lamb hard, breaking it up; pour off excess fat.
  3. Add the onion; cook 5 minutes until soft.
  4. Stir in garlic, ginger and all the spices; cook 1 minute.
  5. Add the chilli; splash in 100 ml water; simmer 5 minutes until dry.
  6. Stir in coriander, parsley, lemon juice; season generously with salt and pepper.
  7. Spread on a tray; cool completely.

Stage 2 - Fold

  1. Place a pastry strip on the board; put a teaspoon of cooled filling at the bottom-right corner.
  2. Fold the corner up to the left edge into a triangle.
  3. Continue folding the triangle up the length of the strip - flag fold style.
  4. At the tail, brush with flour-water paste; tuck and seal.

Stage 3 - Fry

  1. Heat the oil to 170°C in a deep pan.
  2. Fry in batches of 6, 2 ½-3 minutes total, turning, until deep gold and crisp.
  3. Drain on kitchen paper.

Stage 4 - Serve

  1. Stack on a plate; eat warm with lemon wedges and sahawiq for dipping.

Notes

  • Cool filling: Cannot stress this enough - warm filling steams the pastry from inside and destroys the seal.
  • Fold practice: The first three or four samosas will be wobbly. After that, the muscle memory clicks in.
  • Make ahead and freeze: Fold all 24, freeze on a tray, bag. Fry from frozen, adding 1 minute per side.

Storage

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

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