“At least wait for it to cool down,” mom would scold us as we stood around her, waiting for another batch to come on to the plate. We would stand there, in our small kitchen, staring at the half moon shape dough surrounded by small oil bubbles as its color changed from pale white to golden. With a firm hand, mom would flip it over, let it golden and then take it out and place it on the plate. “Hey, that’s mine!” my youngest brother howled when he saw us reach for the plate. “Mom, tell them, I didn’t get any!” he would add as the plate got empty. “Here, this one is especially for you” mom would take a fresh fried sambousek and hand it to my brother, who was sitting looking at the empty plate with tears in his eyes. Years later, when I asked her for the recipe. I was surprised by the short list of ingredients. A pretty basic yeast dough, simple filling, then fry or bake. Sambousek is one of the dishes whose secret lies in their simplicity.
Ingredients
1TBS dry yeasts
1 TBS sugar
½ cup warm water
3 ½ cups flour
½ cup oil
1 tsp salt
½ tsp cumin
½ cup water
Filling
2 cups cooked chickpeas
3 onions diced and fried to golden
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp paprika
½ tsp allspice
½ tsp cardamom
½ tsp ground cloves
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
Place yeast, sugar and warm water in a small bowl. Let stand about 5 minutes until small bubbles are formed. Place flour in a mixer bowl with kneading hook. Add yeast mix and stir. Add salt, cumin, oil and water and knead to make dough. Knead 8 minutes. Place dough in an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise 2 hours until dough is doubled.
Place cooked chickpeas in a food processor bowl with metal blade and grind coarsely. Transfer ground chickpeas to a bowl, add fried onion and spices and mix well.
Divide dough into small balls the size of a ping pong ball. Roll each ball to a disk ⅛ inch thick. Place a full spoon of filling in the center of each disk, fold and tighten the edges.
Heat oil to high heat in a deep pan or pot for deep frying, about 1 inch deep. Fry in small batches about 1-2 minutes each side until golden.
