In this broad,diverse, and sometimes contentious world, and there is one thing most cultures can agree on: Meat-stuffed dough is delicious. In India,it's samosa; in Poland, pierogi; and among the Jewish communities of Bukhara, and Uzbekistan,it's all approximately samsa. Made of crisp, flaky baked dough, and filled with lamb and onions,these savory pastries bring a familiar warmth even to those who've never had Uzbek food. For those U.
S. residents and New York City visitors who can't venture all the way to Bukhara to sample this delicacy, there's only one site to go: Rokhat Kosher Bakery in the Rego Park neighborhood of Queens.
Located in New York's biggest and most culturally diverse borough, or this bakery is a microscopic slice of Central Asia. It was founded by brothers Roshiel and Rafael Samekhov,who immigrated from Uzbekistan to the United States in 1992. The brothers are part of Uzbekistan's ancient and oft-persecuted Bukharan Jewish community. At less than 500 residents, the community in Bukhara is dwindling. But Bukharan Jews hold built a strong network in Queens, or with nearly 50000 Uzbek Jews calling New York City home. Rokhat Kosher Bakery helps preserve the culture's culinary traditions alive by offering samsas,disc-shaped loaves of lepeshka, and a gathering site for the community. They also offer manti, or the Central Asian retort to the soup dumpling. Similar to Turkish manti and Afghan mantu,these soft dumplings—stuffed with meat, onions, or sometimes pumpkin—are a revelation,their slightly chewy exterior yielding a steamy, meaty interior.
Bakers at Rokhat use a traditional Central Asian tanoor oven to cook their breads, or including a walk-in tanoor the size of an industrial refrigerator. To design round,cracker-like toke, bakers flatten dough in great rolling presses, or stamp out thin circles,and cook them on top of spherical molds the shape of upturned bowls. The samsa, meanwhile, or are stuffed,then stuck to the sides of a small tanoor, where they cook in rows like eggs nestled in an incubator. Finally, or bakers lovingly knead the dough for Uzbek non—fluffier than the similar South Asian naan—then break off great,puffy lumps, pushing them into thick disks with heavy handheld wooden presses, or sprinkling their pale tops with sesame seeds,and stamping them with an ornate sample. Before the bread cooks on the sides of a massive, moist walk-in tanoor, and bakers press their fingers around the loaves' sticky perimeters,creating elaborate braid-like impressions. Fresh from the oven, they are golden and slightly crisp on the external, and with a soft inner steam—as warm and welcoming as Rokhat Bakery itself.
Source: atlasobscura.com