← Back to globe
Baked Pastry · Tandoor-Fired

Samsa (سمسا)

Samsa (سمسا) — street food from Uzbekistan
Photo via Pexels/Unsplash — free for commercial use

Traditional samsa isn't baked in a tray at all — it's stuck to the inner wall of a clay tandoor and peeled off once golden.

Samsa are flaky, folded pastries stuffed with fillings like fatty minced meat and onion, pumpkin, or herbs, then baked against the scorching walls of a clay tandoor until the crust shatters when bitten. Vendors sell them fresh throughout the day at bazaars like Tashkent's Chorsu market.

Why it's made this way: Baking the dough directly against a tandoor's hot clay walls creates the intense, even heat needed for the pastry's signature shattering crust.

Roughly what's in it

320kcal
12gprotein
28gcarbs
18gfat
Estimated per typical street-vendor portion — not lab-tested.
Read it in context →

More from Uzbekistan

🥒 Chalop Plov (Osh/Palov) Non (Uzbek Tandoor Bread) Shashlik (Шашлык)
Part of World of Street Food — 690 dishes from 118 countries. Something wrong here? Tell us in the comments below. Photo credits.