GET YOUR GULZILLA ON, PAKISTAN! RRRRROOOOOOAAARRR!!

I'm getting my bestest Gulzilla on!

You'd better be ready, my lovely pack of kitchen cricketers..and get your biggest, baddest Gulzilla on!  Tonight's the exciting World Cup quarterfinal match between the Windies and my all time favouritest, bestest team in the whole wide world and universe, PAKISTAN!

I am so excited about this match...c'mon Pakistan!  Do the job and take those Windies to the cleaners!!!!  I'll be cheering you on the entire time.  Here is what I want to see in this match:

Shahid Afridi:  Skipper, from you I want a Windies Scalp-o-rama!  Do it for me, do it for Pakistan, and do it for all the cricket fans on the planet!

I will never get tired of Afridi's Scalpin' Pose!

Younis Khan:  From you I want a great big fat century!  You can do it and I guarantee that if you get your ton, if you're ever in Melbourne I will make you a cake!

That's right, YK...there's a cake in it for you!

Misbah ul-Haq:  You are the anchor.  From you, I want you to anchor the innings, anchor the squad, and anchor all of Pakistan.  Be your strong, calm, beautiful self!

Fee, fi, fo, fum...ul-Haq smells the blood of a West Indi-an!

 Abdur Razzaq:  From you, I want you to hypnotize the Windies with your special brand of Razzle-Dazzle bowling and batting!  You can ROCK this Quarterfinal!

Razzaq at a previous Razzle-Dazzle

Umar Gul:  Get your Gulzilla on and show those Windies who's boss of Guldozing!  GRRRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!

Umar Gul, make them SHAKE IN THEIR BOOTS!

And all my other Lovely Lads...Go out there and Give Us A Good Show because WE LOVE YOU!!!  And even you, Kamran Akmal, I'm going to let bygones be bygones!  Show us just how great you can be today!!! YES!  YES!

Kamran Akmal, do well today and I'll see to it that you get a hug, too!  Woo hoo!


Now, for today's food, I'm going to re-post an old recipe from October:  Samosas.  Tonight's match will be far too exciting to eat a traditional meal.  All the jumping, all the shouting, etc etc and your dinner will end up on the floor, making a mess of things.  So a samosa will be the perfect thing; filling, nutritious, and you won't make a mess, no matter how excited you get during the match!  LET'S GO PAKISTAN!!!!   LET'S GO SAMOSAS!

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.

Make up some of these, and let's hope our Lovely Lads get their fill of awesome pakistani food before the match so they play awesome pakistani cricket.  GET YOUR GULZILLA ON EVERYONE AND LET'S MAKE THE GROUND TREMBLE WITH OUR CHEERS!!!   VIVAAAAAAAAA PAKISTAN!

Happy Cricket, Happy Samosa, Happy Pakistan!