NOT REAL SAMSA

MY HOME-STYLE SAMSA.

This recipe was found by me many years ago in a wonderful newspaper of Uzbekistan and later adopted to different ingredients and different places that I stayed in. I call it samsa, only because the pirozhki in triangle shape with meat and onion inside were called like that in Central Asia. There is not much common with a real samsa in this recipe, but it still gives me courage to highly advice you to try it at home.

Ingredients:

1 cup of warm milk

1 packet of active-dry yeast (2  1/2 tsp)

2 tbsp caster sugar

1 tsp of salt (if using the unsalted butter)

3-4 cup of all-purpose flour (depends on the flour)

2 sticks of unsalted butter or margarine (softened). If you use margarine, avoid the salt.

Filling:

1 1/2 lb ground turkey meat

2 medium onion

ground black pepper

salt

ground cumin and coriander

In my early attempts to make the samsa, I added 2 eggs, but it requires little bit more time.

Warm up 1 cup of milk. Touch it with your finger, the milk should have  pleasant warm temperature. Mix in 1 packet of the active-dry yeast and sugar.Let it stand.

Sift in 3 cups of flour in a separate bowl . Add softened butter and mix in the butter with your hands. Do not knead the dough, try to get crumbles.

In the cup of milk, you will see the active growth of the yeast. Add the mixture into the flour. Knead the dough into the ball shape. Add more flour, if needed. The dough should be very pliable, not sticky at all. Sometimes I add up to 5 cups of flour.

After the dough is shaped into a ball, put it in the bowl and covet it tightly with plastic and place it in refrigerator.

Time to prepare the meat filling.

Clean the onion and process it in the food processor. Mix the ground turkey meat and onions in medium size bowl. Add salt, pepper, cumin, coriander. Mix it very well.

Heat the oven 350 F.

Cover the baking tray with parchment paper.

Get the dough out of the refrigerator , cut 1/4 part of it. Place the rest of the dough back in the refrigerator. On the floured surface, cut the dough into walnut -size pieces. Roll each piece with the rolling pin into a circle. Place 1 tbsp (or less) of meat filling in the middle of the circle. Pull two top sides of the circle and stick them together, add the bottom side and shape the triangle. Place the shaped samsa on the baking tray. The stitches should on the bottom.When you fill one baking tray, brush the tops of the samsas with egg-wash. You can sprinkle sesame seeds or black cumin (black sesame) seeds (optional). Put the baking tray into the oven.Bake for 30 minutes.

Continue with the remaining dough.

Long time ago, I was adding 2 eggs into the milk mixture. After that, the process is absolutely the same. The only different requirement is that you will need to leave the dough in refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

I also used ground beef instead of turkey.

If you have any questions, please write in the comments, I will be happy to help.

UZBEK PLOV (uzbek pilav)

FINALLY, THE BIG SECRET IS REVEALED. UZBEK PLOV FROM MY FATHER.

   If Uzbekistan could export the Uzbek plov to other countries, it would definitely bring a fortune. Uzbek plov is the most arguable recipe on the post-Soviet territory. There are many hundreds recipes of Uzbek plov and each of them claims to be the No 1 recipe. When people start to talk about Plov recipes, they unintentionally go into the argument about their skills or secret spices that only they might know. I am going to share with you the classic recipe that my Father taught me and I am sure that many of my friends who ate my Father's plov will be happy to try to make plov at their homes, but I also hope that it will not stop them coming to our house where we always happy to see them by the big family table with kazan of plov.

   If you want to spend evening with your friends in a nice, long conversation, with the very good bottle of vodka or cognac, the plov is the best dish that you can imagine. Usually, it takes good 2 hours to make plov. You will need a kazan -the original heavy pot from Ubekistan. If you don't have one you may use big cast-iron pot or some heavy duty cooking pot with a thick bottom.

I don't have measurements for small pots, that's why you will have to adapt the recipe for your own needs.

Let's start.... :)

Meat: We prefer good piece of Lamb, but beef is also acceptable - 1 pound.


Rice: We got used to Sushi Kokuho Pink Rice (available in Asian supermarkets), some claim that Basmati rice works fine; I used also Uncle Ben's. I never tried Turkish Pilav rice, but it could work I assume. - 1 pound.


Carrots- 5


Onion -2 medium size


Garlic- 1 head


Coriander crushed -1/2 tsp


Cumin crushed - 1/2 tsp


Kosher salt- 1/2 tbsp (to taste)


Corn oil or Vegetable oil


Full Kettle with boiling water

Cut the meat into medium size cubes.



Chop the onions.


Clean carrots and cut into long pieces. You can use the mandoline slicer but with the thickets attachment. I cut them with the sharp knife. The carrots should look like this:

Wash rice 5-6 times until the water is clear. Drain.

Peel the first skins of the garlic off.

Now we are ready! Poehali!(Let's Go!)

Put your Kazan (Pot) on the highest fire on your stove. The kazan should be hot when you add the oil. Oil should be approximately 1/2 inches high.

Put chopped onions. When onions are golden color (5-8 minutes) add the cubes of meat. Mix it up all together and let the meat fry its all sides through ( 10-15 minutes). You have to stand by the kazan all the time in order to mix the magic potion. Since, we cook on a very high fire we don't want our meat and onions to burn.






Add all the carrots and mix it again. The carrots will become soft after 8-10 minutes. Do not forget to mix it and mix it again.

Add 1/4 tsp of crushed cumin.

Then, add the hot water. The water should be two fingers ( 1inch) above the surface of the meat-onion-carrot mixture.




Let it boil and cover the lid. We wait till our meat will become ready. It all depend on the meat you guys bought. The good fresh lamb takes 20-30 minutes to cook. Chuck of beef may take an hour. Please, open the lid and check the meat and mix it,mix it, mix it. Perhaps you will need to lower your fire a little.

When you will feel like"Aha, my meat will be ready in 5 minutes"- add the whole head of garlic. Just leave it on top of meat.

Attention: If you lowered the heat, the heat should high before you add the rice.

The rice is clean and drained waiting for you. You  very carefully, put the rice equally on top of the meat. Smooth the top with the skimmer. It's very important to put rice equally everywhere.

Cover with the boiled water. The water should be your  two fingers above the surface of the rice.

After the water will start boiling , add salt and the rest of the spices. (cumin, coriander). Attention: You can try the boiling water for salt and decide whether it is enough or not.

As soon as water will get to level of the rice. (there will be no water above the rice),take the skimmer and carefully  make a mountain with the rice.






Carefully go around the rice and build the mountain. Take a chopstick or knife and make 5-6 wholes in the rice. Cover the lid. If you are using regular cooking pot, lower the heat to medium.Do not open it for  5-10 minutes.

You have time to make a salad.

2 tomatoes (without skin)
1 cucumber (without skin)
1 red onion sliced
salt

Mix the rice with the meat and serve it on the big plate for everybody. The garlic will have a taste of the good roasted garlic, peel the skin and enjoy it!

Do not forget to have a good cup of Green tea after the dinner!!!


P.S. My smart mom, who does everything by rules and laws advised me to write the basic rule for the measures of the ingredients. You will need 3 equal parts of meat, rice and 3/5 carrots+2/5 onions.
For example: 1kg. meat+ 1 kg. rice+ (750 gr. carrots+250 gr. onions)