In America, samosas — the crispy, deep-fried, often potato-filled pastry — largely get associated with Indian cuisine; it’s a common snack at neighborhood restaurants, including those in the Bay Area. But samosas actually came to India in the 1300s from Central Asia, where they’re known as samsa (named after the pyramids), and you’ll find different versions and variants all around the world. In the Maldives, people eat bajiyaa that are often filled with fish, and in the Middle East there are the semicircular sambousek, filled with meats or cheese.
Bay Area restaurants offer a variety of versions — triangular treats that double as gateways into how various cuisines tackle the same foundational food. There’s one stuffed with a whole lamb chop that can start off an Uzbek meal, and there’s a small, potato-filled version that comes with a tangy tamarind sauce that mimics street food in Myanmar. Below is a snapshot of how various restaurants make the filled pastry, whether it’s baked until golden brown or fried twice.
Hearty baked Uzbek samsas at Halal Dastarkhan
“Back in Uzbekistan, whenever guests come to eat a meal at home, samsas are already set on the table,” says Bukhara-born Ismail Achilov, an owner of San Francisco’s only Uzbek restaurant, Halal Dastarkhan. The word “dastarkhan” means tablecloth in Uzbek and refers to the large decorative ones that are topped with food, like plates piled high with buttery samsas. “Samsas are an appetizer, a warm-up before you start feasting.”
Achilov, who runs the Lower Nob Hill restaurant with his brother and three friends, makes the samsa dough using flour, water and melted butter, the latter of which creates a flaky, ridged texture. He then refrigerates the dough for about an hour so that it’s easier to handle.
After that, the dough gets rolled out, then filled with either minced chicken, beef or a whole lamb chop, all seasoned with the same savory mixture of onion, cumin, salt and pepper. He then seals the dough and brushes it with egg yolk for gloss, sprinkles it with sesame seeds for nuttiness and bakes it in an oven until it’s golden brown. (In Uzbekistan, samsas are baked in charcoal-filled tandir ovens, large cylindrical clay ovens similar to Punjabi tandoor ovens.) The final product is served with a mild tomato-based dipping sauce.
The samsas are similar to baked Argentine empanadas, and at Halal Dastarkhan, they’re a good precursor to other Uzbek classics like plov, a meaty rice pilaf with lamb and beef that’s the national dish of Uzbekistan.
$5-$12 per samsa. Halal Dastarkhan, 1098 Sutter St., San Francisco; open for takeout or delivery, 415-525-3378.
A small, mashed-potato-filled samusa at Burmese Kitchen
In Myanmar, you’ll find deep-fried samusas, which tend to be smaller than their Indian counterparts. Dennis Lin, who runs Burmese Kitchen in the Inner Richmond, has memories of eating them as a street food when he was a kid. “Back at home, we’d always eat it on the street — nobody makes it at home,” he said. “Every corner has a little pot of oil going where they’ll fry it fresh and hot.”
This version is made with a pre-made wonton wrapper that Lin gets from his distributor. It takes on an egg-roll texture when fried, a crispy contrast to the soft, turmeric-tinged mashed potatoes inside. A slightly sweet tamarind sauce steeped with spicy Thai chiles comes with it for dipping; it works as a snacky precursor to a big bowl of Burmese Kitchen’s mohinga, a breakfast noodle soup.
$9.95 for four. Burmese Kitchen, 3815 Geary Blvd., San Francisco; open for takeout and delivery, 415-474-5569.
A lighter, crisper version of an Indian samosa at Besharam
In India, where samosas are often deep-fried, there are still regional differences in the dish. “Each and every state has the samosa — what makes it different is the inside filling, and that changes state to state, household to household,” said chef Heena Patel of Dogpatch’s modern Gujarati restaurant Besharam.
Patel takes inspiration from her mother-in-law, who made samosas out of rotis, the round, thin flatbreads found across India. Patel prefers the roti version because “it’s lighter than Punjabi samosas,” which tend to have a thicker pastry shell. “You don’t feel too full,” she said of the roti version.
Patel cuts her roti dough with a bit of all-purpose flour in addition to the whole wheat flour, which helps make the dough less dense. She then fills it with potato that’s been cut, boiled and mixed with sauteed red onion, serrano chiles, garlic, ginger, turmeric and a house-made garam masala — all while being careful to not overhandle the potatoes so that they retain their shape.
Then these samosas go into a deep fryer where they’re first parcooked, then flash-fried to order for an extra-crispy exterior; a thick tamarind-date chutney accompanies the samosas for a tart, sweet contrast. But India isn’t the only place Patel pulls from — she also makes a unique kimchi-filled version, a collaborative creation that came from having a table next to Volcano Kimchi at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market.
$11 for three. Besharam, 1275 Minnesota St., San Francisco; open for takeout and delivery, 415-580-7662.
Spicy, beef-filled sambusa at Jubba Somali Restaurant
Somalia’s sambusas are also deep-fried. In the Bay Area, you’ll find a spicy, beef-filled version at Jubba Somali Restaurant in San Jose, which Amina Nur opened in 2009.
Sambusas are a special-occasion food in Somalia, according to Nur, such as during weddings or when guests visit. “Usually I eat them during Ramadan,” she said. “When the sun goes down, that’s the first thing we eat.”
Nur learned to make sambusas from her mother. Her dough is a bit richer in taste and flaky in texture, made with flour, egg and oil. The filling contains a mixture of ground beef, green onion, white onion, salt, pepper, smoky cumin and lots of spicy dried red chile. It’s served with an equally spicy side of basbaas, a salsa-like Somali hot sauce Nur makes with three kinds of fresh chiles, vinegar, cilantro and oil. It’s the spiciest dipping situation of the bunch by far.
Special occasion as sambusas may be, you may want to order a bit more than an appetizer. For the rest of the meal, any of the suqqars (diced and spiced meat stir-fries) paired with chapati is a good starting point to explore Somalian cuisine.
$2 each. Jubba Somali Restaurant, 5330 Terner Way, San Jose; open for takeout and delivery, 408-440-1504.
Omar Mamoon is a San Francisco writer and cookie guy. Find him at @ommmar Email: food@sfchronicle.com
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