Algerian Samsa

I used the same dough and stuffing for these samsas that I prepared for my meloui

Ramadan is the month for fried foods! Especially fried sweets or savory pastries like these samsas. These are fried in just a little bit of oil and are quite light compared to most fried pastries or turnovers. They taste rather like a semolina pizza dough stuffed with spiced potatoes.

I serve these with a spicy chermoula or a salsa tomatish. A mixed green salad or a sweet and peppery orange and arugala salad. A spicy chick pea or lentil soup is also quite nice with these samsas.

According to The Oxford Companion to Food 10th and 13th century Arab cookbooks call these sanbusak derived from the Persian sanbosag. South Asian samosas, Afghani sambosas, Central Asian waraqi samsa or sambusai varaqi, and Turkish samsas all belong to the same family of turnovers.

Samsa is an Ottoman influence in Algerian cooking, but that doesn't mean we didn't have stuffed turnovers before the Turks. We had Moorish pastillas (beestiya), Arab trid, and Berber kesrettes. And post Ottoman rule, Algerians added cocas from Catalan to our culinary lexicon.