Destination
Kigali
The story
Sambusa is East Africa's most beloved fried pastry: small triangular filo-style pockets stuffed with a mixture of spiced minced beef (or chicken, or lentils), onion, green peas, garlic and green chilies, sealed shut and deep-fried until deeply golden and crackly. Sold at every Rwandan bar and roadside cart as an ideal snack with cold beer, at Kigali cafés for afternoon tea, and at every household for Ramadan iftar and for special occasions. Served hot with a small dish of tomato-and-lime dipping sauce or a spoon of ají-style chili sauce.
Method
In a large bowl, whisk flour and salt. Add oil and rub in with fingertips. Add water gradually to make a firm but pliable dough. Knead 5 minutes on a lightly floured surface. Cover with a damp towel and rest 30 minutes.
Warm oil in a wide pan. Cook onion 5 minutes; add garlic, ginger and chilies. Cook 60 seconds. Add mince, break up, brown 8 minutes. Add cumin, coriander, garam masala, turmeric, paprika, salt and pepper. Cook 3 more minutes.
Off the heat, fold in the peas, coriander and lime juice. Cool completely — hot filling melts the pastry.
Warm oil in a small pan. Cook garlic and chili 30 seconds. Add tomato purée, salt and sugar. Simmer 8 minutes until thickened. Off the heat, stir in lime and coriander.
Whisk the cornflour and water into a smooth paste for sealing. Divide the dough into 8 balls. Roll each ball into a very thin oval about 30cm long and 10cm wide. Cut each oval lengthways into 2 long strips.
Working with each strip: place a heaped teaspoon of cooled filling at one corner. Fold the corner over the filling to make a triangle. Continue folding down the strip like folding a flag — every fold makes a neat triangle — until the strip is used. Seal the last edge with a dab of cornflour paste. Repeat until you have 16 sambusas.
Heat oil to 175C. Fry the sambusas 4 to 6 at a time for 90 seconds per side until deep golden and crisp. Drain on a wire rack.
Arrange on a platter. Serve immediately with dipping sauce, lime wedges and cold beer. Excellent as a bar snack, an appetiser, or as a lunchtime meal with rice and kachumbari.
Tips
- Cool the filling completely. Hot filling melts the oil in the pastry and gives you an unshapeable, greasy mess. Cool at least 30 minutes before assembly.
- Thin pastry. Roll to 1-2mm thick. Thick pastry gives you a stodgy sambusa; thin pastry blisters and crisps.
- Seal well. Any gap and molten filling leaks into the fryer, turning the oil dark. Cornflour paste + firm pressing is the classical seal.
- 175C oil. A thermometer helps. Cooler and the pastry absorbs oil; hotter and the outside burns before the filling heats through.
- Freeze ahead. Uncooked sambusas freeze beautifully. Freeze flat on a tray first, then bag them up. Fry directly from frozen — add 90 seconds to the cook time. This is how East African households cater parties.
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