Spoiler
A samosa is the most common street snack available in the India and Pakistan. Like all Indian food, you have many variations, the foodies can actually identify where a person hails from by the way they use spices in their cooking. A real expert would be able to give you a lowdown on the ingredients by the aroma of the food being cooked.
I don't have that kind of skill, nowhere near those kind of skills, in fact. My Grandmother, I considered her a devil as a child, because she was very insistent on imparting her culinary skills to me. Yes, she was the bane of my existence as a teenager; because she insisted I had to learn to cook. She could tell you if the food you were cooking lacked salt (even a tiny pinch) by just looking at the food being cooked, and I tried many ways to catch her out, but she was always right, and I hated that. Every opportunity I got, I used to try and trip her up, over spice, under spice, she would know and would rectify the stuff (couldn't call it food at that stage because of my ministrations) and make it edible and tasty. I wish she was around now, so she could nag my daughter like she did me. Her grandmothers just dote on her and never nag her, how unfair is that. I had my vacations hounded being made to cook and she spends them sleeping!
What exactly is a samosa?
It is a deep fried pastry shell, with stuffing. The stuffing used commonly is a potato filling, but you can use your imagination and use a stuffing of your choice. Should you use only potatoes? If you like the potato filling yes, but it is always nice to throw in some green peas, a few tiny pieces of carrots. If you want to appease your guilt for eating something so sinfully caloric, you can make the filling with cottage cheese (paneer) and feel good about getting your day's dairy quota through it. In fact, one of the most popular stuffing for Samosas, in certain parts of the country is minced meat, of course with Indian spicing.
The spices, mentioned in my recipe should be used as a guideline and you should go with your taste. If you like the taste of ginger, increase the quantity a little, if you don't like it reduce it. If you are not used to Indian cooking, I would suggest you follow the recipe first, and the next time around experiment with it. So use the recipe as a guideline and adapt like crazy. Indian cooking is all about adaptation. My Grandmother would be horrified if she knows I measure out ingredients exactly or pass on recipes with such exact instructions. Well, I was one of her failures – as far as cooking went, a granddaughter who did not know enough to say what could improve a recipe or what was wrong with it, just by looking at it and sniffing. Hmm. Well, I loved her then, even though I ranted and raved at her when she would corner me into the kitchen. I would have tried a full-blown tantrum too, but I knew the parental units would not stand for that, and if they got riled up I would be stuck in the kitchen the entire vacation, instead of a couple of hours a week. Did you think she was a slave driver? No, she wanted to share her hobby with me, and I loved to share it but only when I was eating what she cooked, cooking myself – ugh! I still hate it, though thanks to my Grandma and my mom I can cook. A major testimonial to their talent that I can serve up edible food for friends and family.
So enough of the digressing and on with the recipe. I tried to be exact with the quantities, though I do not actually cook that way, I hope those of you who try the recipe, like the results.
I don't have that kind of skill, nowhere near those kind of skills, in fact. My Grandmother, I considered her a devil as a child, because she was very insistent on imparting her culinary skills to me. Yes, she was the bane of my existence as a teenager; because she insisted I had to learn to cook. She could tell you if the food you were cooking lacked salt (even a tiny pinch) by just looking at the food being cooked, and I tried many ways to catch her out, but she was always right, and I hated that. Every opportunity I got, I used to try and trip her up, over spice, under spice, she would know and would rectify the stuff (couldn't call it food at that stage because of my ministrations) and make it edible and tasty. I wish she was around now, so she could nag my daughter like she did me. Her grandmothers just dote on her and never nag her, how unfair is that. I had my vacations hounded being made to cook and she spends them sleeping!
What exactly is a samosa?
It is a deep fried pastry shell, with stuffing. The stuffing used commonly is a potato filling, but you can use your imagination and use a stuffing of your choice. Should you use only potatoes? If you like the potato filling yes, but it is always nice to throw in some green peas, a few tiny pieces of carrots. If you want to appease your guilt for eating something so sinfully caloric, you can make the filling with cottage cheese (paneer) and feel good about getting your day's dairy quota through it. In fact, one of the most popular stuffing for Samosas, in certain parts of the country is minced meat, of course with Indian spicing.
The spices, mentioned in my recipe should be used as a guideline and you should go with your taste. If you like the taste of ginger, increase the quantity a little, if you don't like it reduce it. If you are not used to Indian cooking, I would suggest you follow the recipe first, and the next time around experiment with it. So use the recipe as a guideline and adapt like crazy. Indian cooking is all about adaptation. My Grandmother would be horrified if she knows I measure out ingredients exactly or pass on recipes with such exact instructions. Well, I was one of her failures – as far as cooking went, a granddaughter who did not know enough to say what could improve a recipe or what was wrong with it, just by looking at it and sniffing. Hmm. Well, I loved her then, even though I ranted and raved at her when she would corner me into the kitchen. I would have tried a full-blown tantrum too, but I knew the parental units would not stand for that, and if they got riled up I would be stuck in the kitchen the entire vacation, instead of a couple of hours a week. Did you think she was a slave driver? No, she wanted to share her hobby with me, and I loved to share it but only when I was eating what she cooked, cooking myself – ugh! I still hate it, though thanks to my Grandma and my mom I can cook. A major testimonial to their talent that I can serve up edible food for friends and family.
So enough of the digressing and on with the recipe. I tried to be exact with the quantities, though I do not actually cook that way, I hope those of you who try the recipe, like the results.
For the Pastry Shell:
- 3 cups All purpose flour /or any other Pastry flour
- Salt to taste (roughly ½ to ¾ teaspoon of salt)
- 7 tablespoons shortening (Ghee if you can get it or make it, or any other vegetable shortening available, butter, – but no oil.)
- Cold water, as required ( around 100 – 150 ml is what you should need)
For Rolling and Sealing:
- 2 tablespoon all purpose flour/ Pastry flour
- Some water (2 -3 tablespoons)
For The Stuffing:
- 6 medium sized potatoes, peeled, boiled and crumbled/finely diced/almost mashed (depends on an individuals preference).
- 1 cup of boiled green peas (optional)
- Salt to taste
- If you like onions, one finely chopped onion (optional)
- Finely chopped fresh coriander leaves (cilantro) (2 tablespoons to ½ a cup)
- 1 teaspoon amchur powder (dried mango powder) that hint of tang in the samosa is provided by the amchur (am – mango, chur – powdered), should be available at any Indian Grocer's store, if impossible to obtain you can always use some fresh lemon juice, but using the amchur is one of the secrets. If you like it tangier, you can safely increase the amount of amchur used. You can taste the filling and adjust the quantity to suit your taste.
- 1 teaspoon red chilli powder (again available at any Indian grocer's or you can substitute it with cayenne pepper powder)
- 4 teaspoons ground coriander/cumin seed powder (also should be available at any Indian Grocers, otherwise dry roast the coriander seeds and cumin seed, and use your coffee grinder to powder it – if doing it at home you need 2 teaspoons of each)
- ½ teaspoon of ground cinnamon (if it is a strong or freshly ground you can reduce the quantity, because you want only a mild hint/ teasing aroma – not predominantly cinnamon)
- 1 tablespoon dried ginger powder, if like me you prefer using fresh ginger root, take about an inch long piece of ginger, wash it well, skin it and grind it the quantity of ginger used depends on personal taste, but you need some ginger in there, whether the dried powder, or the fresh ground one)
- Those who love garam masala (omit the cinnamon and use garam masala)
- Four tablespoons of any cooking oil – canola, sunflower, olive whatever you have
- A mixture of mustard seeds (small tiny black) and cumin seeds (about ½ a teaspoon full), if you like the flavour of curry leaf and have them available a couple of fresh curry leaves. (the curry leaves are optional)
- A pinch of asafoetida
- Oil for deep frying (canola oil/ peanut oil/ sunflower oil – don't use olive oil for this)
For the Pastry Shell:
1. Sieve the flour and salt together. For best results use the super refined un-sifted flour made from soft spring wheat. Samosa is not healthy food; it is the comfort food and great to eat with chai (the milky and flavored variety) and steaming hot especially in the monsoons when it is pouring cats and dogs. You want the dough to be nice and flaky and yet not oily.
2. Hence you are supposed to use ghee or vegetable shortening; you could try unsalted butter if nothing else is available. Don't use oil, because the dough will end up oily and not flaky.
3. Use your fingers to cut in the shortening into the flour, till you end up with a bread crumb textured mixture.
4. Add just enough cold water until the dough holds together. Never ever use warm water, because your shortening will melt before the dough is ready and you will end up with the oiliness in the pastry shell that we want to avoid. Once the dough is formed, you have to knead it at least for five minutes, ten would be ideal.
5. Cover with a moist cloth or cling film/ plastic film/ saran wrap and set aside for about 20 minutes.
For The stuffing:
1. Heat four tablespoons of oil in a wok or a pan.
2. Add the asafoetida, mixture of mustard and cumin seeds, curry leaves if using.
3. When the seeds start spluttering, (you can hear them and see them jump around) add the finely diced onion. If not using onion jump to step 5.
4. Sauté the onion till it becomes translucent.
5. Add all the other stuffing ingredients (in the samosa the order is not important) and mix well and cook for a few minutes until heated through. If it seems to dry, add a small dash of water while cooking, the stuffing should be dry but clump together. Cover and set aside.
I prefer to add the spices before adding the potatoes and the peas because it becomes easier to mix everything and it also brings out the flavour of the spices. Be careful the spices don't burn though.
Simple wasn't it.
How to fold a Samosa or shape it:
Method 1:
- Divide the dough into eight balls ( keep it covered with a moist cloth or cling film or saran wrap)
- Roll out a ball into an eight inch circle, the thickness would be about that of a dime.
- Cut it into two halves with a sharp pointed knife. You should have two semi-circle shaped pastry
- Take one piece and fold it into a cone (like a dunce cap) with the outer edge overlapping the inner edge, the overlapping seam should be ¼ of an inch wide. Seal this using the sealer (mix the flour and water)
- You can also seal by pressing and pinching the dough, but use the sealer if you are not used to working with pastry and make sure the two edges are adhering to each other and there is no gap from the pointed tip to the top.
- Fill the cone ⅔ of the way with the stuffing (should be around 2 ½ tablespoons roughly)
- Press the samosa between your palms to remove air pockets.
- Seal the wide side of the cone by fluting the edges.
- Cover with moist cloth/plastic film/cling film/saran wrap until ready to fry.
- Repeat with the other semi circle and the rest of the dough.
- Yes this recipe yields 16 Samosas
Of course there is a cheat sheet, the stuffing is simple, it looks elaborate because I love to prattle on. You can probably get frozen Samosa strips at the Indian Grocery store, no Indian Grocery store in your neighbourhood, use Frozen Filo Pastry Sheets.
- Cut the Filo pastry into three inch by 12 inch wide strips. Fold one end to form a triangle, fold again the other way to complete the strip. You only want the creases there to give you a guideline for the filling. So once you have established the fold lines, unfold it and place the stuffing carefully in the second triangle mark. Fold carefully and seal the triangle with our sealer.
- Now repeat the folding and stuffing for the rest of the Samosas.
For Frying:
- Preheat your fryer. If you don't have a fryer, oil in a heavy bottomed frying pan which you can use for deep frying. Don't let the oil smoke. The temperature should be ideally around 290° F to 350°F. Of course, I do it without the thermometers etc, courtesy said granny. The very fact that I am writing these details would be enough to give her a fit if she were alive.
- Deep fry the Samosas till golden brown. Serve with a relish or chutney of your choice.
- If the temperature is too low, the Samosa will be oily and if it is too hot the pastry shell will form bubbles and won't be crispy.
- For those who like a really crispy pastry shell called (khol in hindi) the secret along with having proper kneading, shortening, frying temperatures is to add 2 tablespoons of rice flour when making the dough. Sieve it along with the Pastry flour/all purpose flour and salt. This makes it very crispy, so use it only if you like really crispy pastry shell.
- Be creative. How?
- Shape it the way you want, just be careful that there are no air pockets and it is sealed well.
- Play around with choice of stuffing: Choice of stuffing. You are a meat eater – use mince meat, like beef – go ahead, like mushrooms, use them. Cauliflower, cashew nuts, spring roll stuffing, egg roll stuffing, cottage cheese. You name it and you can try it.
- They freeze well. To freeze, just freeze the stuffed pastry. When you want to use, thaw and deep fry.
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