Punjabi Samosas – To fry or not to fry?

Samosas are available in most places in the world as little triangle pastries filled with a variety of vegetarian or non-vegetarian fillings.  They can be eaten as a snack with a cup of tea or served as a starter with any meal. 

The recipe is easy to make but as with most cooking - preparation is the key to making these.

Ingredients for 30 samosas

6 medium potatoes

6  medium carrots

1 ½ cup of frozen peas

I finely chopped onion (medium size)

A teaspoon of blended ginger

2 or 3 finely chopped green chillies (can be reduced or missed out if you do not like hot food)

Small bunch of finely chopped coriander

1 tsp salt

2 tsps sugar or sugar substitute

1 tbp lemon

1 tsp of garam masala  (optional)

1 litre sunflower oil if you wish to try the samosas

For the pastry

2 ½ cups of plain flour

¼ cup of butter

½ tsp of carom seeds (optional)

½ tsp of rosemary

½  cup warm water

½ cup plain flour to help roll out the pastry

Method:

1. Add butter, carom seeds and rosemary to the plain flour and mix. Add some warm water a little at a time to the flour to make the pastry dough.  The dough should be of a similar consistency to play doh. Cover this dough and leave in a warm place.

2.   Dice the potatoes and carrots into small cubes.  Wash the vegetables and transfer them to a microwave dish with the frozen peas.  Add in the ginger, salt and sugar.  Let this mixture cook for 10 minutes, stir and cook again for 10 minutes.   The vegetables should now be cooked.  Add in the lemon juice and stir.

3.  Transfer the mixture to a large mixing bowl and add in the garam masala , finely chopped onions, green chillies and coriander and mix well.  Allow this mixture to cool. By adding the garam masala and uncooked onions, chillies and coriander at this stage will give the samosas a nice flavour.

To prepare  the somasas  

4.    Knead the dough and divide the pastry dough into 30 small balls.  Take one ball and using some dry flour roll out a circle of about 4-5 inches in diameter.

 5.  One circle will make two samosas.  Cut the circle into two.

6. Place the samosa mixture on one quarter of the semicircle. 

7. Pull the second quarter to cover the samosa mixture.  

8.  Join the edges by pressing them with a fork.  

9.   Finish making all the samosas and save them on a lightly floured surface.

10. You can now choose the healthy option for cooking your samosas by rubbing/spraying  some sunflower oil on the samosas and baking them for 20 minutes at 180 degrees (350 degrees F)  or you be naughty and deep fry them until golden brown.   I baked half and fried the rest. Both tasted equally nice.

This is the baked version:

This is the fried version:

11.  Serve them hot or cold with any dip. 

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