Cheese Sambousek
Tags: Appetizer
Yield: 48
- 2 cups/256 grams unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more as needed
- 1 cup/180 grams fine semolina
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt (such as Diamond Crystal)
- 1 cup/227 grams unsalted butter (2 sticks), diced then brought to room temperature
- 1 large egg
- 8 ounces/227 grams Muenster, mozzarella or kashkaval cheese, grated
- 6 tablespoons/57 grams sesame or nigella seeds, or both
- To make the dough, in a large bowl, use your hands to mix together the flour, semolina and ½ teaspoon of the salt. Add the diced butter, toss to coat in the dry ingredients, then mix it in with your fingertips until thoroughly combined. Add ¼ cup lukewarm water and mix to make a soft but not sticky dough, adding another 1 to 4 tablespoons of water if needed (or enough that the dough cleans the bowl). Cover the dough with a damp towel or plastic wrap and let it rest while you prepare the filling.
- To prepare the filling, beat the egg in a medium bowl, then mix in the cheese and the remaining ½ teaspoon salt.
- Heat the oven to 350 degrees and divide the dough into 4 pieces, then leave 3 of the pieces covered in the damp towel or wrapped in plastic.
- Sprinkle the rolling surface lightly with flour and roll out one piece of dough until about ⅛-inch thick, rubbing the rolling pin with flour if needed to prevent sticking. Using a 2½-inch-wide cookie cutter or glass, cut out about 9 rounds of dough. Reroll the scraps to make as many rounds as possible, ideally about 3 more rounds (12 rounds total from the one piece of dough).
- Cover the cut rounds with a damp towel. Working with one round at a time, put 1 packed teaspoon of cheese filling gingerly in the center of each round, gently pressing the cheese into the dough then folding the dough into a half-moon shape. Then use your finger and thumb to seal the rounded edge. (You can also flute it, folding to seal as you would fold an empanada.) Place the filled sambousek about ½ inch apart on 2 parchment paper-lined sheet pans and cover with a damp towel.
- Repeat with the remaining 3 pieces of dough, forming about 48 sambousek, making sure the dough and sambousek stay covered so they don’t dry out.
- Once you’ve formed all your sambousek, set the seeds in a small bowl and set each sambousek in the seeds, pressing to coat one side. Return them to the baking sheet, seed side up, and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until lightly golden brown.
- Serve immediately. (You can also form and freeze the sambousek before baking, then bake them directly from frozen, increasing the cook time by 5 or so minutes.)
