The other day, Eilene complained that it has been a long time since I have made samsa. I have filled these baked pocket breads with lamb and spinach in the past and they are very popular in my house. I thought about mixing the lamb and the spinach versions, but Jan rejected that idea.
Karl’s Pollo Picante Samsa
Filed under Main Dishes, Poultry
This recipe comes from a memory of a taste and of a Mongolian? Chef (from the banner behind him I think it is Inner Mongolia).
Karl’s Uyghur Lamb Samsa
Yesterday I made Uzbek samsa, a baked dough filled with spinach, and it reminded Jan of the Uyghur lamb samsa we had in Kashgar in 1988. I know the name Uyghur looks frightening to American sensibilities, but it is pronounced “Way-ger.” We were taking our vacation, from teaching English to the Chinese, to the far west of China. There were almost no foreigners in China during those months so, except for a few stray Canadians and Australians, we had Xinjiang pretty much to ourselves (not counting several million locals). The locals assumed that we were Canadians, except for the one who thought I was a Russian and the woman who came up to Jan and started chatting her up in Uyghur. She could have easily passed in the Mexican embroidered dress and the Russian babushka she was wearing.
Jan and Miriam
(in blue – age 4)
at the Kashgar Market
Filed under Lamb, Main Dishes
Adapted from a World Cook recipe
Today I was surfing the web looking for a new idea, some recipe, some country’s food I had not yet tried to make. I stumbled upon World Cook, a site out of the Netherlands with recipes from 133 countries (currently there are officially 196 countries total). It does not purport to be comprehensive, some countries have many recipes, others only a single one. You can search by country, ingredient, and day of the year. Many of the recipes have a bit of cultural background added to them if they are associated with a particular holiday. The site is also a bit of a travel log of their family’s visits to places away from home.
I spent hours exploring the site and it had an odd quirk. Whenever you select a recipe to look at, a second unrelated recipe appeared on the same page. For example the page for the Uzbekistan Samsa recipe also had one for Tomato Soup. One recipe would lead you to another, and another, and another. It became addictive to see where it all would lead. I finally chose the samsa recipe, but the original Uzbek recipe was a bit boring. The dough was OK, but the filling was just spinach and onions. I was going to have to spice this recipe up.
Karl’s Samsa with Spinach and Paneer
(baked samosa)
Filed under Main Dishes, Vegetarian MD
karllueck
Miriam
Jabberwocky Stew 