Uyghur Pastries

Between the bread and the noodles sits a whole family of stuffed, baked and fried things that Uyghur cooking does exceptionally well. Samsa is the flagship: a hand-folded pastry filled with seasoned lamb and onion, baked until the outside shatters and the inside runs with juice. If you know Uzbek somsa or South Asian samosa, this is their oven-baked cousin — same family, different accent.

Alongside it: manta steamed to order, goshnaan baked flat and cut into wedges, and quyash qatlima — the layered pastry that gives this list its sweet end. These travel well, order well as sides, and disappear first at family gatherings.