Do you know the sesame-coated pitas from Abulafia, imagine those—but filled with pizza, sambusak style. My goodness!
For shaping, I’m giving you two options, and both work beautifully. One is a large hamantaschen-style triangle, and the other is a crescent shape. Either way, it’s very important to seal the dough well before baking, because it tends to open slightly in the oven as it rises.
One more important note before you start—additional fillings. You can use almost anything you like here, and you can also combine more than one. In the closed sambusak, I used a few fillings together, while in the triangles I kept it to one per pastry.
A little tip: try adding about half a hard-boiled egg to the filling of the closed versions. When you cut into them, it’s a beautiful surprise—and it tastes amazing.
And one last bonus.
After baking, I brush the pastries with garlic oil. It gives them a beautiful shine, but more importantly, a warm garlic flavor that makes them irresistible. You can skip this step, or instead add 2–3 cloves of crushed garlic into the tomato sauce—but the garlic oil really takes them up a notch.
That’s it. Go make them, and tell me how they turned out. 😊
And please—use good-quality crushed tomatoes. I’ve written about this before because it really matters.
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- Check out all my recipes for savory baking
