Food for T20 matches: Vegetable Samosas

Nothing makes me happier than watching my favourite team (Pakistan) and having a nice snack.  So here’s how to make some very tasty samosas.  Don’t be intimidated by the long list of ingredients!

Ingredients:                                                                      

3 cups all purpose flour

2 tablespoons of ghee or clarified butter

Water (approx 1.5 cups)

Pinch of salt

5 large potatoes

3 cardamom pods

½  cinnamon stick

4 cloves

5 black peppercorns

1 star anise

1 bay leaf

1 small piece peeled ginger

½ onion, finely chopped

5-6 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1 teaspoon coriander powder

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon  aamchoor (raw mango powder)

1 teaspoon anardana (ground pomegranate seeds)

½ teaspoon lal mirch (red chili powder), or more according to taste

Salt

Cooking oil for deep frying.

Mix flour with ghee and salt and water.  Make a firm, smooth dough.  Set aside.

Peel  and cut the potatoes

Boil the potatoes with the ginger, bay leaf, star anise, peppercorns, cinnamon stick, cloves, and cardamom pods.

When potatoes are cooked, remove the whole spices, and roughly mash the potatoes.

Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a pan.   Fry the onions until brown and almost crispy, then add the chopped garlic.

Add cumin seeds, coriander powder, turmeric, aamchoor, anardana, and lal mirch.  Fry a few seconds.

Add the roughly mashed potatoes to this mix, and add salt.  Mix well.  Cook 7-10 minutes.  Turn off heat and leave aside.

Divide the dough into golfball sizes.  Roll out to 7-8 cm in diameter.  Cut each circle in 2.

Wet the straight edge with water; fold into cone and seal the side well.  Fill ¾ with the potato mix.

Wet and seal edges. 

Deep fry until golden.  Eat.

You may have noticed that there is no garam masala powder in my recipe; that’s because I find the commercial garam masala to be a bit bitter.  That’s why I boil some spices with my potatoes to get the “real” garam masala flavour.

Some people like their samosas to be sour.  You can add either lemon juice or tamarind water to the potato mix.  Feel free to add peas to the potato mix.

Enjoy the samosas!

Kiki's making samosas for the lunch break?  Right ON!!!