Back to School with Cheese Sambusak

Sambusak make a truly nutritious snack that are just perfect for hectic school mornings.

Despite its Aboriginal name, Kirrawee was a very white, very Christian neighborhood. A sleepy, leafy green, idyllic suburb in the southern reaches of Sydney.

If there were any Jews there, we didn’t know them. There were certainly no Iraqi Jews besides my immediate family. With my jet black hair, hazel eyes and olive skin, I didn’t look like my friends and neighbors. Regina, my best friend at school, was blonde and blue-eyed. Bronwyn, my friend who lived down the road and attended a Convent school, was a redhead.

After school, the neighborhood kids would crowd on Meehan Place, a cul-de-sac where my father was building a house. One day, I was having a conversation with one of the mums. “C’est la vie!” she said. “What does that mean?” I replied. She was very confused. “Isn’t your family French? Don’t you speak French?” she answered.

I was part of two worlds. With my grandparents and parents, I heard Iraqit (Judeo-Arabic) and Hebrew. With friends and acquaintances, it was very proper Queen’s English. Some weekdays, my nanny “Auntie” Jan would take me to Catholic mass. On Shabbat, my Nana Aziza and Aba Naji would take me to synagogue in the more Jewish Eastern Suburbs, where they lived.

At school, I learned the words to every Christmas carol and performed in the nativity play and my classmates and I eagerly hunted the chocolate Easter eggs hidden by “the Easter bunny.” With my family, we had lively Pesach seders and wonderful, loud Friday night dinners with my grandmother’s incredible Iraqi food.

Every “fair dinkum” Aussie eats Vegemite. It’s as close to a national food as it gets. It’s a salty, umami flavored yeast extract spread that is full of nutrients, like riboflavin and niacin. All my classmates ate Vegemite sandwiches for lunch — spread with a thick layer of butter on white bread with the crusts cut off. Mine were made with a healthier twist—on whole wheat bread with iceberg lettuce.

Of course, school lunches in America couldn’t be any more different. Even classic peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are forbidden because of nut allergies.

This back-to-school season, Shevy (my youngest daughter) and I have been discussing the ways we will prep her school lunches. We’ve agreed that it isn’t economical to rely on last minute Uber Eats or DoorDash orders. We will have bento boxes filled with fresh salads and thermos containers packed with warm leftovers. There will be plenty of fruits, snack-sized portions of trail mix and nuts and healthy-ish bars.

There is also a freezer filled with Iraqi baked goods. Crispy baba t’amar with their soft gooey date fillings and cheese sambusak. Cheese sambusak are the perfect treat for on-the-go snacking, a cute little hand pie filled with a mixture of white and yellow cheeses.

I was always intimidated by sambusak because my grandmother and mother would make such huge batches of dough. But this time, I decided I would halve the dough to a more manageable seven-and-a-half cups of flour. The dough came together so easily and it was a sensory pleasure to knead and roll. I made one filling with delicious natural and kosher feta and muenster cheeses. And then to be extra fancy I made another filling with feta, pesto and sun-dried tomatoes. Sambusak make a truly nutritious snack that are just perfect for hectic school mornings.

—Sharon

I’ve only ever made sambusak a few times. Marrying into Neil’s Rhodesli family meant learning to make burekas, which are very similar. Burekas dough is a little more of a crumbly short crust, whereas sambusak dough is crusty and chewy. Burekas are almost always stuffed with potato and feta cheese and sambusak can be filled with cheeses or fried with a curried chickpea filling.

When my kids were school age, Becky, my mother-in-law, always kept my freezer full of burekas. The kids would come home from school and warm up one or two in the toaster oven to tide them over until I got home from work. As Becky grew older and my work schedule lightened up, I started to spend more time baking and I would make my own burekas.

These days, without a full-time crew in the house, I only bake them for special occasions and holiday lunches. (I don’t want Neil eating them all — they’re his favorite!) As Sephardic Spice Girls, Sharon and I always venture out of our comfort zone and learn new recipes and techniques. A couple of years ago, we hosted a community bake with Shannon Sarna and I learned how to make sambusak.

This weekend, Neil and I are in Mexico City for a family wedding. Whenever I travel, I always seek out the local kosher market. Mexico City has a huge Syrian community and I’ve always heard about the incredible homemade delicacies available at the kosher markets. I wasn’t disappointed — there were all types of kibbe, stuffed vegetables, crackers, pitas, kaak and biscochos. But I was especially excited to purchase the beautifully crimped sambusak!

How special that these sambusak baking traditions have spread from the Middle East and the Mediterranean all over the world!

—Rachel

How special that these sambusak baking traditions have spread from the Middle East and the Mediterranean all over the world.

Cheese Sambusak Recipe

Dough
2 packets active dry yeast
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp kosher salt
2 cups warm water, divided
7 cups all purpose flour, sifted
1 cup avocado or vegetable oil
1 tsp fennel or nigella seeds

Filling
1 1/2 cups shredded Muenster cheese
1 1/2 cups crumbled feta cheese
Pinch of pepper
Pinch of salt
3 eggs, beaten
1 egg, for egg wash
Sesame seeds, for garnish

In a small bowl, add warm water to yeast, sugar and salt. Cover and leave to proof for 10 to 15 minutes.
In a stand mixer, add flour, oil, water and yeast mixture. Beat until a dough is formed.
Remove dough from mixer bowl and knead the dough by hand until it is smooth and stretchy. 

Place the dough in an oiled bowl, then rub some oil on top of the dough. Cover with a kitchen towel and set aside in a warm spot for 1 hour.

In a medium bowl, combine the muenster and feta cheeses, salt and pepper and eggs in a bowl and mix together. Then refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Divide the dough into two balls.
Flour the counter and roll out one of the balls to about 1/8 of an inch. Using a glass or a cookie cutter, cut the dough into circles.
Place a teaspoon of the cheese mixture on one half of the circle and fold over. 

Press the edges firmly together. Use a fork to press down on the edges to secure the dough or make a beautiful pattern by pinching the dough.
Place each sambusak on a parchment lined baking sheet. 

Repeat until all the dough and filling is used. 

Brush tops of sambusak with egg wash and sprinkle with sesame seeds. 

Bake for 25 minutes or until golden.

Variation: Add basil pesto and sun-dried tomatoes to cheese filling.

Sharon Gomperts and Rachel Emquies Sheff have been friends since high school. The Sephardic Spice Girls project has grown from their collaboration on events for the Sephardic Educational Center in Jerusalem. Follow them
on Instagram @sephardicspicegirls and on Facebook at Sephardic Spice SEC Food.