For LeftyMom - how to make kick-ass samosas (pic heavy)

billyskank

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Fri Jun-30-06 04:26 PM
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For LeftyMom - how to make kick-ass samosas (pic heavy)

Ingredients

8 small potatoes
Small can of peas
Plain flour
Sunflower oil
Cumin seeds
Fresh chilli
Fresh ginger
Garam masala
Ground coriander

Preparation

It's really a two-stage process, making the mix and the pastry being the first stage, and actually making the samosas the second. Preferably you should let the mix cool and the pastry rest before making the samosas, and in fact I let the mix sit in the fridge overnight because I did not have enough time to make them all in one evening.

First of all I peeled my potatoes and put them on to boil. While they cooked, I de-seeded and finely chopped two chillis, and peeled, grated and chopped some ginger:

Making the pastry

The potatoes still had a while to cook, so I set about making the pastry. I just threw a random amount of flour in the bowl - I always seem to fluke the right amount, and this time it worked again. Pour some oil in with the flour:

That's too much oil, by the way. ;)

Add water progressively until it turns into a convincing dough, and knead it a bit until it ends up something like this:

By this time my potatoes were cooked so I drained those off and mashed them. It's okay if they're mashed coarsely, it doesn't need to be so fine, just so long as there are no big lumps left.

Making the mix

I started cooking the mix. First off, I fried a generous helping of cumin seeds in oil:

When the seeds had darkened and started to pop, I threw in the chilli and ginger. All hell broke loose. This is normal. ;)

When the chilli was soft, I threw in the peas:

When the peas had gone a bit soft, I stirred in about 2 tsp of garam masala and stopped the gas. Then I added the mashed potato, and stirred it all up with a teaspoon of ground coriander. Add salt to taste, and the mix is done:

Making the samosas

This is the bit you can do with your kids. :) I am no good at this part, and far superior methods for making them exist. I don't know what they are, and probably wouldn't have the skill to execute them anyway.

I had decided by looking at my mixture that I was going to make 16 samosas, so I cut my pastry into 8 equal parts:

For each one, roll it into a ball, cover it in flour and squash it on the bench:

Roll it out as best you can into a circle (I was not very successful as you can see):

Cut the circle in half:

This will thus make two samosas. Moisten the straight edge and fold it in half to make a quarter-circle, and squeeze the moistened edges together. Fill the pocket of pastry with samosa mix:

and squeeze the samosa shut:

Not very beautiful, but it will do. :)

When I had about eight of them prepared, I started frying them while I made the rest. The oil wants to be hot but not too hot (smoking would be way too hot):

and finally - ta-daaa! - you have beautiful tasty samosas. Mine tasted great. :9

Here is a completely unnecessary picture of me in an apron: