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THE MIXING BOWL The Crispy, Spicy Sambusa Project

DELICATE PACKAGES Still crispy and spicy, my sambusas are a little thinner and longer than the authentic version.

Tarmo Hannula

By SARAH RINGLER

Many cultures have little packages full of ingredients that are folded into dough and fried, baked or steamed. This recipe is from Somalia, mysomalifood.com, and is distinguished by the spices and the unusual way the packages are prepared. There are many steps that might take you in directions you have never gone before.

Sambusas are very crispy, which comes from being fried but also from the way the dough is formed. The dough is made, kneaded, formed into balls, rolled out into disks and then the disks are layered and rolled out again. Rolling out the disks together makes for a very thin and delicate crust. Filled with spicy meat, they can be served with something simple like a salad or steamed vegetables.

Closely related to Indian samosas, they are wonderful served with chutney and yogurt. According to S. Mangalassary in “Indigenous Culture, Education and Globalization,” they originated in the Middle East and spread outward to Asia and Africa from there.

Sambusa wrappers

1 1/2 cups plain all-purpose flour 1 tablespoon oil 1/2 cup lukewarm water, or more if necessary

Salt

Filling

1/2-pound ground beef or lamb 1 tablespoon oil for rolling out 1 small onion, chopped 1 small minced green serrano or jalapeño chili 1 green onion, chopped 1 clove garlic, minced 1 tablespoon cilantro, finely chopped 1 teaspoon coriander powder 1 teaspoon cumin powder 1 teaspoon cardamom powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon pepper Flour for rolling out 1 cup oil for final frying

Flour paste

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour 2 tablespoons water, or as needed

You will be making 16 wrappers. First, mix the flour, oil and salt in a medium bowl. Add the water slowly using a fork to make a soft and pliable dough. Add more water if necessary. Knead it for 5-10 minutes until smooth and pliable. Form the dough into a ball and coat the outside with cooking oil. Cover and set it aside for about 15 minutes.

Knead the dough again and divide it into 4 equal portions. Form each portion into a ball. On a floured board, take two balls and roll each one into a 5-inch circle. Brush one circle with oil and place the other one on top. Press the edges gently with your fingers to make sure they line up. With a rolling pin, roll on a floured surface into an 8-10 inch diameter circle. Repeat with the other two portions.

Heat a 12-inch skillet or griddle on medium-low heat. Take one of your double circles and with a sharp knife and cut it into quarters. Take one quarter and roll it out into a large triangle shape, about double in size. Place the triangle on the warm skillet and warm on each side to dry it out, but make sure you don’t leave it too long. Remove and let it cool slightly. Slowly separate it into two pieces without tearing them. Cover them with a towel and continue to repeat the same steps until you have 16 wrappers.

Making the filling by heating a skillet with oil over medium heat. Add the meat and crumble with a spoon. Then stir in the onions, minced green chilis, green onions, garlic and cilantro. Finally add spices, salt and pepper and cook briefly for a few minutes. Taste and adjust flavors. Let the filling cool at room temperature.

In a small bowl, mix flour and the water to make a smooth paste. To assemble the sambusas, take one of the wrappers with your hands and form it into a cone shape. Seal the edges with flour paste. Fill the cone with a few spoons of filling and close the top into a triangle shape and seal it with the flour paste. Pinch the edges so that it is completely sealed. Divide the filling between 16 wrappers.

Prepare your stove for deep fat frying. Use a stable heavy bottomed frying pan. Set up a strainer over a bowl to catch the sambusas as they come out of the oil and then a cookie tin covered with paper towels to drain off the excess fat.

Heat about 1 cup of oil in the frying pan over medium high heat. Do not leave the stove at this point. Fry the sambusas until golden brown. Remove and drain in strainer and then on paper towels. Serve while warm.

Tom Brezsny’s REAL ESTATE OF MIND

Provoking thought since 1990

I’ve been in a contemplative mood lately, something that often happens when the winds of real estate settle into their more customary calm around this time of year. Many buyers are on a furlough until after the first of the year. That’s when they’ll push the reset button and venture back into the fray. And many sellers have their sights set on 2021 and are busy prepping for early spring. For now, I’m enjoying a little distance from the daily grind. There’s been a nagging notion rolling around in my head this year. Maybe it’s a symptom of the bigger anxieties floating around in a world that seems increasingly wired by negative emotions. The uncomfortable feeling I’ve had is that real estate’s growing reliance on technology isn’t such a good thing. I’m haunted by a quote from a former Facebook employee echoing Ginsberg’s seminal line: “I saw the best minds of my generation inventing new ways to make people click on things.” When I look at real estate and how the process works these days, I can see ways it is headed down the wrong path. I talk to hundreds of people every week and because I’m curious, I always ask about their experiences with buying or selling. Recently a theme has emerged from all the random sampling I’ve done. More often than not, people describe being confused or frustrated about their recent real estate ventures. They often talk about feeling left in the lurch, without any context about how all the separate parts, moving with such dizzying speed, actually fit together into a whole. They complain about never really talking to their agent. How she/he only texts them. About being left alone to fend for themselves on the internet, or about receiving Dropbox links with hundreds of pages of inspections without any explanation until a second email arrives asking for their electronic signatures on each page to prove they’ve read them. There’s a powerful drive to translate everything we do as Realtors into a onesize-fits-all digital format. To go faster and to paint our clients lives by the numbers with newer and better algorithms. To boil their decision-making down to a series of 1s and 0s for our own good and supposedly theirs. It doesn’t help that we live right on the edge of Silicon Valley, where a huge percentage of buyers and sellers participate in the larger tech economy surrounding us. Life and work via the internet is what’s expected here. If you don’t have it, you aren’t successful. And if you can’t embrace it - it’s time to get out of the business.

Next: How real estate should learn to live with and without the internet.

Tom Brezsny Realtor® DRE#01063297 831-818-1431 getreal@serenogroup.com

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