On the heat. Mild — cumin and pepper

Ingredients

• 700 g lamb, hand-chopped or minced
• 150 g lamb tail fat, in 5 mm dice
• 3 onions, chopped fine — as much onion as meat, nearly
• 2 tsp cumin seed, crushed
• 2 tsp coarse black pepper · 2 tsp salt
• — PASTRY
• 500 g plain flour · 250 ml water
• 1 tsp salt · 100 g soft butter, for laminating
• Egg wash · nigella and sesame seed

Method

1. Filling: mix the meat, diced fat, onion, cumin, pepper and salt. Do not cook it — it goes in raw and cooks inside the pastry.
2. Dough: flour, water and salt kneaded 10 minutes, rested 30.
3. Roll it very thin, spread with soft butter, roll into a tight cylinder, then cut into 16. Stand each piece on its cut end and press flat — that gives the flaky layers.
4. Roll each into a 12 cm round, fill, and fold into a triangle, pinching hard.
5. Egg-wash, seed, and bake at 220 °C for 15 minutes, then 190 °C for 20.
6. Rest 10 minutes before biting into one. The fat inside is molten and will burn you.

Cook's note. The diced fat is the whole trick. It melts inside the sealed pastry and poaches the meat in its own fat. Lean filling gives you a dry, crumbly samsa.

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