Sunday, October 05, 2008

The Imperfect Punjabi Samosa

Yet till date my best!


This was our Saturday night dinner downed with Kokum sarbat


I love pictures shot in daylight. I hate to use flash and don't have a mini studio set up for shooting the food that I present here. So took the pictures today at breakfast. Yes these proportions gave 12 samosas so we had leftovers for breakfast too. So this time they went with our morning Chaha!

Samosa making I consider is an art I have not mastered yet. With several recipes that I have followed I have been only partly successful. After googling a lot and studying the various recipes I arrived at this.

The crust tasted good. Almost like what I fantasize about but then they didn't look like my favorite samosas.

You have read here about Samosa at my school they used to be quite big and sold at a mere 50 p at the time. They were always golden like I made today and the pastry frill was something I would never part with when sharing the samosa with friends. There would always be an instruction to take a bite at the top conical part so that I could savor the frill at the end. One bite and one look at it and wondering at the maker's art and blessing the person.

The second of my favorite is the plump Samosas from Jhama. They serve with chole, fried long chilies and onion rings. One samosa at evening time keeps you calm till a late dinner. These samosas are greyish golden not the golden in my pictures may be because they are fried in Dalda. The cover is thick but flaky. I love their cover for it's smooth surface.

I want to achieve that! The samosa with a smooth cover is my dream! Can someone tell me how I can do it. That will make my samosas perfect. Any experts lurking there?


Ingredients

For the stuffing
10 boiled and deskined potatoes
1 cup peas
1 teaspoon garam masala
1/4 teaspoon dried mango powder/ amchur
1 teaspoon ginger garlic paste
salt to taste
2 teaspoon oil


Heat the oil. Fry the the ginger garlic paste. Dice the boiled and peeled potatoes follow with peas. Mix well. Add the garam masala and amchur powder and give a nice stir. Cover and cook for 10 mins on low heat. Add the salt and give a stir once in that time. Let it cool while we make the pastry.

For the cover

1/3 cup semolina
1 heaped cup maida
1/4 cup ghee
salt

Oil to fry the samosas

Heat the ghee just to melt it. Meanwhile measure out the maida and semolina into a big bowl. Rub in the warm molten ghee into the flour and semolina mix to get a nice crumbly mix. Add salt, water and make a tight dough. Let it rest for minimum 1/2 hr.

After the resting beat the dough down with a rolling pin. This makes the dough flakier.

To start shaping the samosas:





First pinch off a nice 2X2 inch of the dough. Make a smooth ball. Roll out a into an oval. Cut the pastry at the center along the longer length. Scoop about 2 tablespoons of stuffing and put it on the center. Apply water along the edges. Just so you don't miss any edge it is easy to apply water to all the edges. This will help seal the stuffing from coming out while frying. Fold over the pastry to overlap at the seams about a 1/4 inch. Hold the samosa like you hold a glass with the conical side down. Now pinch together the open side and seal completely. Make a nice frill. After frying if your are a crust lover you will bless me for it.

Shape all the samosas before you start frying.

Heat oil in a wok and fry the triangles of love till golden on medium heat.

Remove on a mesh to drain excess oil.

Serve with Khati Meethi Date Tamarind chutney or Pudina chutney.


6 comments:

  1. Picture is really tempting and who can ever resist a samosa? the rasedar batata looks delicious...

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  2. Imperfect? From which angle? They look absolutely delicious! Hey thanks for reminding the school canteen samosas @50ps!

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  3. U might be crazy ...who can call these imperpect?I love the brown crisp cover.But if u want the smooth surface and faded colour,then fry the samosas in NOT HOT oil,i mean the oil should not be at smoking temp.,just heat the oil ,and fry them on low flame....yeah they take time to fry this way,but u will get absolutely smooth surface and try keeping the maida layer bit thick for those jhama style samosas.I generally add a spoon of saunf(fennel seeds)while grinding ginger garlic green chillies,it gives really good taste to the stuffing.Sorry ....even after these many suggestions i still have one more....hope u don't mind...try adding half to one spoon of Ajwain(caraway)in the dough,even cumin will do,but it do give samosa a real authentic taste..these are just suggestions...i believe evryone has different preferences so kindly excuse me if these suggestions irk u....
    And btw have u ever tasted VIG's samosa and Dal pakwan....if u had spend even two days in chembur camp,u can't afford to miss that..

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  4. Hey Alka good to see an expert cooment here. Yes I have tasted Vig's too but I am a Jhama's samosa fan. I like Vig's Dal pakwan.

    I'll try the saunf trick but I don't like any spices in samosa covers. I like them smoooooth..so you know about my craziness now:). Thank you.

    ReplyDelete

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