Punjabi Style Samosa

Sold everywhere in India, these are a veggie classic. The pastry for these is much better than that used to make the ‘oh so perfect’ triangles you get in the supermarkets. It is a lot less hassle to work with and makes a more substantial samosa – perfect for lunch. They are a bit of an effort to make but once you have mastered this you can play about with the fillings. Once made however they are a real treat and people go mad for them hot from the fryer.

Ingredients:

200g potato, peeled, cubed

150g carrot, diced

100g frozen peas

1 tbsp coriander seeds

1 ½ tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp black peppercorns

4 whole cloves

½ tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp turmeric

1 onion, finely diced

1 green chilli, seeds in/out, finely chopped

4 fat cloves of garlic, crushed

thumb sized piece of fresh ginger, grated

Handful of coriander, roughly chopped.

1 lemon

salt

200g plain flour

100g melted butter

1 litre vegetable oil for deep frying

Method:

Boil the potato until soft, drain and roughly mash. Cook the carrots until just done and then throw in the peas to blanch in the same water, then drain. In a frying pan, dry roast the coriander seeds, 1 tsp of the cumin seeds, the black peppercorns and cloves until fragrant taking care not to burn. Grind the spices in a pestle and mortar with the cinnamon and turmeric. Fry the onion in 2 tbsp of the oil until brown, add the chilli, garlic and ginger and fry for a further minute, then add the spice mix. Fry for a further minute mixing well and then transfer to the bowl with the potato and the veg. Mix the veg with the onion and spice mix adding the fresh coriander, a squeeze of lemon and salt to taste – it will need quite generous seasoning.

In a clean bowl, mix the flour, the remaining ½ tsp of cumin seeds, salt, melted butter, a squeeze of lemon and a tiny bit of warm water until you have a smooth, soft dough. Divide into three equal balls and on a floured surface, roll each ball into a circle approx 20cm in diameter – it should be quite thin (2mm to 3mm). Cut each circle in half so you have 6 semicircles. Make a small amount of thick paste from equal quantities of water and flour – this is the glue to seal the samosas.   

Take a semicircle of dough and rub a line of flour glue down half of the long cut side. Twist the semicircle round to make a cone shape (you must have done this at school sometime with paper?) and with the flour glue seal the side edge of the cone.  Hold the cone in a cupped hand and using a spoon fill with the veg mix, pushing it down into the point of the cone.   When the samosa is full with a 1cm rim of pastry left at the top, rub some flour glue along the top edges and seal by pushing the edges together. You want to aim for a rough triangle shape with a fan like top, full of filling and with no air pockets. If the top edges of your samosa are a bit messy, you can tidy up with some scissors. Repeat the process for the remaining samosas making sure each is fully sealed so that no oil gets in during cooking.

I'm not sure if you bought a deep fat fryer after my chips and bearnaise blog but now is the time to dust it off. You could also use a deep pan or wok to deep fry. Heat the oil to 160c (or until a piece of bread goes golden in approx 30 seconds). Cook the samosas 2 or 3 at a time for approx 5 mins until golden brown and very crispy. Serve with one or all of my chutneys, link below:

http://nuevacocina.blogspot.com/2011/06/indian-style-chutneys-and-raita.html