Tajikistan: vegan sambusa

Our first stop in Central Asia brings us to Tajikistan where we make a Tajik vegan dish in the form of pumpkin sambusa, a local version of samosa. Read on for a brief introduction into Tajik cuisine or jump straight to the recipe. Enjoy!

Tajik cuisine

Tajikistan is a small country of about 10 million inhabitants, nestled between the mountains in Central Asia, neighbouring Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan to the north, Afghanistan to the south, and China to the east ​[1]​. Tajik cooking shares a lot of similarities with its larger neighbours, in particular with Uzbekistan, along with Russian influences, stemming from Tajikistan’s recent inclusion in the Soviet Union ​[2]–[4]​. The country’s geography to a large extent dictates what is eaten and dairy (often fermented), bread, meat (sheep, goat, horse), and dried fruits are popular staples. Among the grains, we find rice, wheat, buckwheat, and barley while typical vegetables include onion, carrots, pumpkin, scallions, and leafy greens like spinach. Nuts and dried fruits like apples, apricots, and plums are plentiful and most meals include some. For seasoning, the Tajik cuisine uses cumin, anise, saffron, and fresh herbs like mint, parsley, and coriander. Legumes are also eaten to some extent, including peas, chickpeas, and mung beans.

Famous Tajik dishes

Plov

Tajikistan has two dishes that are often identified as their national dishes. Pilau, or plov, is a popular rice dish in the entire region ​[2], [3], [5]​. There are many variations but the common theme is that rice is cooked with onions, carrots, dried fruits, sometimes legumes like peas or chickpeas and often some meat. The Tajik plov is very reminiscent of the Kabuli Palau we made during our virtual visit to Afghanistan, Tajikistan’s southern neighbour.

Qurutob

Tajikistan’s second national dish is called qurutob ​[2], [4], [6], [7]​. Hard, dried balls of salt cheese, qurut, are soaked in water (ob, hence the name qurutob) to create a watery paste (might be possible to simulate with salted yoghurt ​[6]​) which is covered in torn pieces of a flaky bread called fatir. The bread is then covered with fried onions, other fried vegetables and herbs. Sounds reminiscent of fatteh, the toasted pita chips covered in a yoghurt and tahini dressing we made during our trip to Syria.

Non

On the topic of bread, different breads, or non, play a great role in Tajik cuisine and most meals are served with some form of bread ​[2]​. Just like for Latvia, brad is surrounded by traditions. If you drop your bread, you have to put it on a high ledge for beggars or birds (no kissing it in apology like you can do in Latvia!). If you place the bread upside down on the table, you will get bad luck and you cannot stack things on top of the bread (unless it is more bread). Non, or naan, is similar to the more famous Indian naan – a wheat dough made with yoghurt and baked in a tandoor (a large clay oven), but the Tajik non is thicker, round and has a pretty indent in the center.

Vegan Tajik sambusa

For our visit to Tajikistan, I chose to make Tajik vegan sambusa or samosa. Like so many other countries in a very large region centred around Central Asia, the sambusa (or samosa, or samsa) is very popular in Tajikistan ​[4], [7], [8]​. While samosa has almost become synonymous with Indian cooking (who can imagine an Indian restaurant without samosa in the starter section?), the samosa, or sambusa, most likely originates from the golden crescent. The first historical mention of samosa is from an Iranian text in the 10th century CE. Samosa spread throughout the region and reached India a few hundred years later.

In Tajikistan, sambusa are made from a flaky dough made from wheat flour and water, rolled out thinly, oiled and layered. The Tajik sambusa come with a variety of fillings, such as onion and lamb, fresh herbs, onion and pumpkin or chickpeas. Always triangular and baked rather than fried, the sambusa is often decorated with sesame seeds.

For this post, I chose to make vegan Tajik sambusa with a pumpkin filling, largely based on a recipe by Max Malkiel ​[9]​.

Conclusion

I have never had pumpkin sambusa, or samosa, before and it was quite interesting. The filling for this vegan Tajik dish was a bit on the sweet side for my taste though but it was fun to make my own sambusa from scratch, including the dough. They turned out really well and were very crispy.

Print

Sambusa

These Tajik Sambusa, as samosa are known in Tajikistan, are filled with pumpkin, onion and cumin and sprinkled wiht sesame seeds before baking.

Course Appetizer, buffet, Side Dish, Snack, starter

Cuisine Central Asia, Tajikistan

Keyword pumpkin, sambusa, samosa

Prep Time 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes minutes

Resting time 3 hours hours

Servings 12 sambusa

Ingredients

Pastry dough

• 250 g all purpose flour
• 125 g warm water
• ½ tsp salt
• or use storebought filo dough / puff pastry

Filling

• 180 g pumpkin, grate
• 180 g onion, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp cumin seeds or ground cumin
• ½ tsp salt
• 1-2 tbsp sesame seeds
• optional aqua faba or plant milk for brushing

Instructions

Pastry dough

• Either make your own pastry dough as described here or use store bought puff pastry or filo dough. There are many accidentally vegan versions (where dairy is omitted for price and stability rather than other reasons).
• Heat the water until it is warm, warmer than tap water but not boiling.
• Mix flour, salt and water. Work the water into the dough. It will be a quite dry and very firm dough but it will work.

  Roll dough into a small ball, cover in clingfilm and let rest in the fridge for 30+ min, preferably 2 h.
• Take the dough out and knead it a bit extra, if needed. Let rest on the counter for a few minutes to let the gluten relax.

  Using a rolling pin, roll it out as thin as you can. This is a bit of work and will likely take some 10 min. If the dough starts to dry out, coat it with little bit of water. If it is tough, give it a few minutes resting or change rolling direction.

  I got the dough down to 1-2 mm thickness.
• Coat dough witha thin layer of olive oil and roll it up as tighly as you can. Cover the roll with a little oil and roll it up into a snail shell or snake shape. Cover in cling film and let rest for 30+ min. (If resting for longer, let rest in the fridge).
• Prepare filling

Filling

• Peel the pumpkin and grate it.

  Chop the onion finely.
• Mix equal volumes of onion and pumpkin. Sprinkle in some salt and cumin seeds.

Making sambusa

• Set oven to 225 °C
• When the dough is rested, take it out and cut it into 12 small pieces.

  On a floured surface, stand a cut piece on its end and roll it into a flat disc, about 10 cm in diameter.
• Place the dough disc in your hand, add ~2 tbsp filling.

  Make a fold in the dough, creating a line from the centre to the edge (see photos below). Bring up two other edges from the other side and pinch onto the created edges, forming a triangular sambusa with three seams going from the center out.

  Pinch the edges hard to create a seal. If needed, you can add a little bit of water where the dough pieces meet to help.

  Repeat with remaining dough and stuffing.
• Place sambusa on a baking sheet, brush with aqua faba, plantbased milk or water and sprinkle with sesame seeds.
• Bake for 15-25 minutes at 225 °C, until the sambusa are golden.

  (Using a convection oven, I found 15 min to be a good time.)