The moment we first tasted the Samusa Soup at San Francisco’s Burma Superstar, we agreed we had to make it at home. It’s a complex and spicy lentil-based soup, with cabbage, bean sprouts, and chunks of samosas and falafels providing texture and taste. Well, an exhaustive net search turned up nothing except posted inquiries from other people looking for the same thing!
So, armed with a photo taken at the restaurant and our collective taste memory, we assembled the following reasonable facsimile. Let me know how it works out for you, and if you have any refinements or corrections.
A note about ingredients: I’m sure this recipe would be better with homemade falafels and samosas, but who wants to bother? Visit your favorite middle eastern sandwich shop for the falafels, and your local Indian grocery for the samosas – they’ll be right at the checkout counter. If not, ask the staff what day the nice lady brings them around. The Indian grocery will have the toor dal you’ll need, too.
Samusa Soup
1 cup toor dal, washed until water runs clear
4 cups water
4 tablespoons ghee
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
3 dried red chiles de arbol, broken in half
3 jalapenos, seeded and sliced
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
2 teaspoons ancho chile, powdered
2 teaspoons turmeric
1 teaspoon Indian ground hot red chile (Kashmiri diggi mirch) (or more to taste)
2 cups shredded cabbage
6 cups vegetable broth (more or less)
1 teaspoon Tamcon (Tamarind concentrate)
1 teaspoon garam masala
salt to taste
2 cups mung bean sprouts, washed
4 samosas, store-bought
8 falafels, restaurant-made
chopped cilantro, for garnish
chopped spring onions, for garnish
lemon wedges
Bring the washed toor dal to boil with the four cups of water; cover
partially and simmer until done, 35-45 minutes. Remove from heat and
set aside.
Roast the coriander, cumin seeds, and black peppercorns in a dry
skillet, separately, over medium-low heat until just fragrant.
Cool, then grind in a spice grinder, and set aside.
Fry the sliced onion, jalapenos, and chiles in ghee over low heat until
onions just begin to brown. Add the ground dry-roasted coriander,
cumin, and pepper, and the turmeric, ancho chile, and Indian red pepper.
Raise heat to medium and fry together for a few minutes, then add the
shredded cabbage. Stir and fry until cabbage loses its raw look, around
five minutes.
Add four cups of vegetable stock, the Tamarind Concentrate, and the cooked dal with its liquid. Adjust consistency with additional vegetable stock depending on the amount of broth you want. Cover and simmer over low heat for half an hour or so.
Add garam masala, and salt to taste.
Warm the samosas in the oven at 200 degrees for 10 minutes or so, then
add the falafels for another 5 minutes or until all are heated through.
Place one samosa in each of four soup bowls and cut into five or six pieces.
Place two falafels in each bowl and cut into quarters. Add the bean
sprouts, a quarter of the cooked broth, garnish with the cilantro and
spring onions. Pass around lemon wedges for everyone to season their bowls to taste.
Serves four hungry people.
June 27, 2008 at 8:34 pm
I started my search with the same intent as yours. One think I noticed about the soup, and that for me often differentiates the tastes of SEA from those of India is the addition of lemon or lime, to give it a bit of a sour bite. I think that is a missing component in your recipe. Might want to give it a try!
October 31, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Lime might be ok. But I’m BS right now and I can tell you that there is deinitely tamarind in here.
January 12, 2010 at 9:21 pm
Nick, belated thanks for your comment, and I was completely amused that you did a web search for the recipe while sitting at Burma Superstar and wound up here.
We made another batch this weekend and I totally agree – I’m adding a teaspoon of Tamcon to the recipe immediately.
December 1, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Isabel, belated thanks for your suggestion – it’s right on the money, and I’ve edited it into the recipe above.
May 28, 2009 at 4:19 pm
thanks for sharing your research — it was hit!
June 15, 2009 at 11:23 pm
I seem to remember there being potatoes and jalapenos in the samusa soup as well…I will let you know hoe this recipe goes over.
thanks for the hard work!
July 29, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Just tried your recipe last night after having gone to Burma Superstar in May. By this point, I don’t really remember how the BS version tasted exactly, but this one was delicious in its own right. I might scale back to 2 jalapenos next time to take down the heat a little, but that’s about it. Thanks so much for posting this.
August 3, 2009 at 1:45 pm
oh, I have tried to make this soup many times as it’s my favorite restaurant (anywhere) and quite possibly my favorite dish there, it’s hard to choose. I moved to Stockholm 2 years ago and there is no Burmese food to be found here let alone in many of the European cities I’ve been to. I liked the first version I made a year back but since have not tried to duplicate it because it just didn’t taste like the real thing. I actually wrote them an email about my Burma Superstar-less life…anyway bottom line, I am so thankful to you for posting this, I can’t wait to try it :)
October 5, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Thank you for posting this. I agree about the lemon/lime. I followed this recipe pretty closely and I found that it was too spicy. I would cut back on the spice a bit, but otherwise this is amazing. Whenever we visit San Fran from LA the first place we go is Burma Superstar. This made my day!!
October 9, 2009 at 2:53 am
Update to earlier post —
So, I was sick yesterday, and really feeling like a delicious samusa soup. But I wasn’t feeling well and had no energy for cooking. So I cheated… I purchased an order of prepared daal and an order of samusas from my neighborhood pakistani place. I pureed the daal, added about 1.5 cups of chicken stock, 2/3 cup of coconut milk. Added the juice of two limes and served over shredded cabbage, a few slices of jalapeno, and the broken up samusas. Delicious! Not exactly like the Burma Superstar version, but just as good!
October 22, 2009 at 1:18 pm
I had to cut WAY back on the hot spices, but this recipe has made my year! Thank you so much for posting
February 3, 2010 at 2:24 pm
last time i was there (a month ago) i saw brown chickpeas in the soup for sure. not that many but they were there as I grew up eating indian brown chickpea curry.
May 13, 2010 at 11:59 pm
I just tried this soup at the Oakland location and was DELICIOUS! So I will try to make it at home.
Thanks for the recipe!
January 26, 2011 at 4:08 pm
I found this page while eating samusa soup from a Burmese restaurant on Larkin @ Turk where it doesn’t seem to be on the menu but they are happy to make it for you. I first had it at BS too, but Larkin is much more convenient for me. I’m not nearly such a dedicated cook at you – after looking at this recipe I think I’ll continue to order it out!
February 5, 2011 at 3:45 pm
[…] out this excellent Samusa Soup recipe with some friends. This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. ← […]
February 10, 2011 at 1:55 am
this recipe needs black chickpeas. i remember they were in the soup at the restaurant and that was the key joy creating ingredient for me.
March 23, 2011 at 12:27 pm
Bay leaves!
May 21, 2011 at 5:26 pm
I loved Samusa soup while in San Fran and am delighted to have a recipe to replicate, and the heat is just what I need when nursing a cold!
However, one flavor that seems to be in restaurant samusa soups is a very slight seafood or fishy flavour. Can anyone advise if restaurants typically use some fish sauce/paste? Or sea vegetables or seaweed to add this slight taste.
I am a vegetarian so would NOT want to use a fish sauce/seasoning.
August 5, 2012 at 10:59 am
In Burma, there are some Indian food vendors sell this type of soup with boiled brown chickpeas, boiled sliced potatoes, samosas, yellow pea fritters, shredded cabbage, sliced onions or spring onions, sliced small chilli, soup made with channa dal powder and spices, tamarind juice or lemon juice and fish sauce or salt. Just like to add more info from Burma. They garnish with cilantro or mint. For those who like more spices , use roasted flakes of chilli. So easy to make and delicious soup.
December 11, 2012 at 11:07 pm
Tried it today, came out very well! Thanks for the recipe.
March 15, 2013 at 9:03 am
Very happy to have found this–I haven’t been beguiled by something as much as this soup in a long time! Had it a couple weeks ago visiting my brother in SF. Thanks so much for the reverse engineering, and I look forward to giving this a go–
June 7, 2014 at 11:10 am
Loved trying this for the first time. Thank you for posting this recipe! I also added 4-5 cloves, 3-4 black kokums, and ginger to the recipe, and I think it helped the daal a bit!
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July 18, 2016 at 1:05 am
Thank you so much for sharing this wonderful recipe!!