Sooooooooooooooooo I guess I took a bit of an unexpected hiatus there…sooorry about that. You didn’t miss much though. I’m still poor, subsisting on quesadillas and mac n’ cheese, and blowing the last of my cash on concert tickets and cheap beer…basically being your typical college student. My lack of funds led to a pretty blah diet so I was  hard pressed to find things to blog about. I kind of figured y’all didn’t need to read about how to heat up a can of soup or cook up a box of Annie’s (a.k.a. the best mac n’ cheese IN THE WORLD) so I refrained. BUT after a couple weeks of feeling sorry for myself and bitterly watching the food network/reading cooking blogs I slapped some sense into myself and got back to cooking. I made some soups and breads and one of my friends even took on the roll of sugar mama/financier and bought us ribs. It was all good but it wasn’t until I made these samosas that I finally got back into the game. Dirt cheap, easy to make, easy to freeze, and beyond delicious…these guys were worth blogging about! So world, I introduce you to my lovely little samosas….

I decided to make veggie samosas cause I’ve made them before and because everyone loves potatoes (especially when they’re singing and dancing). I boiled my potatoes so they would retain some moisture then threw them in a pan with some sauteed ginger, garlic, and onion. I like to mash mine down till they’re chunky, but still pretty mushed up, it’s nice to have some potato chunks in there still. Then I added in some water, turmeric, garam masala, cumin, etc. and gave it all a good stir. Add in some super gourmet frozen peas and carrots and voila! Samosa filling in less than 20 minutes. Beautiful.

Once you’ve got your filling down, it’s time to take care of the dough. An ideal samosa, in my opinion at least, is thin skinned, crisp, and flaky. The key to getting that flakiness is fat! Yaaaaay! Any kind of flaky dough requires that you “cut” or “rub” some kind of fat into flour. In this case I used vegetable oil and used my fingers to work the oil into the flour until the mixture resembled coarse breadcrumbs. I left some bigger pieces in there just to shake things up too, I figured pea size is acceptable.

Once your oil is rubbed in, slowly add water and begin to work the dough. I add water by the tablespoon to make sure the dough doesn’t get overly wet. It’ll come together pretty quickly and should be easy to knead.

After you’ve got it all figured out…it’s time to start making samosas! I let my dough take a breather for about 20 minutes then rolled it into a snake and cut it into ten pieces.

So now that you’ve got ten little chunkies of dough, take one and roll it into a ball, and then roll it out on the counter into as perfect a circle as possible. Don’t worry if it turns out to be more a rectangle, I ended up mostly with weird oblong circtangles and I almost failed geometry in high school so whateves…I ain’t judging. After you’ve rolled it into whatever shape you ended up with, cut it in half and form it into a cone by folding the straight side over onto itself.

Stuff your cone with about 2 tablespoon of filling then roll up the top to seal it off. In the end you’ll have twenty little samosas ready to fry!

To fry your samosas, heat up about 3 cups worth of vegetable oil in a heavy pot to around 275-300ºF. You don’t want it too hot or your samosas will burn before they actually cook all the way through. I did them in batches of 4 and let them cook for about 5 minutes per side/till they were lovely and golden brown. Once they’re out of the oil, let them drain on some paper towels to get ride of excess oil.

They were awesome fresh out of the pot BUT they also freeze and warm up really well. I’ve currently got about ten in the freezer currently, ready to be popped in the toaster oven…then into my BELLY! I had some yogurt and cilantro pesto that I made earlier in the week so I combined them to make a delicious dip. It’s always nice to have something to cut the heat and grease. BUT they’re also great alone. Make them!

Vegetable Samosas

For filling

• 2 medium sized russet potatoes, peeled and quartered
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tsp fresh ginger, grated
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 2 tsp garam masala*
• 1 tsp coriander
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1 cup peas and carrots, the frozen variety
• 1/2 cup water

For dough

• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 4 tbsp oil
• ~8 tbsp water

In a small sauce pan/pot, boil quartered potatoes for about 10 minutes, or until tender and easily pierced with a fork. Pour off most of the water but keep about 1/4 cup in the pot with the potatoes. Heat vegetable oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. Saute onion, garlic, and ginger till fragrant and translucent. Add in garam masala, coriander, cumin, turmeric, and paprika and cook for about 2 minutes. Pour potatoes and the potato water into the pan, mash them down, and mix them with the onions, garlic, ginger, and spices. Slowly add in 1/2 cup water while continuously stirring and mashing so as to keep potatoes smooth and moist. Defrost or microwave the peas and carrots and add to the potato mixture. Remove from heat and set aside.

To make the dough, stir flour and salt together in a large bowl. Add in the vegetable oil and rub oil into flour with fingers until the mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs. Slowly add water, tablespoon by tablespoon, while stirring together and kneading dough. Once all the water has been added and the dough has come together, knead until smooth and let sit for about 20 minutes.

Once dough has rested, roll into a snake and divide into ten pieces. Roll each piece into a circle, cut in half, form into a cone by wetting and sealing the seam, and stuff each cone with about 2 tbsp filling. Wet the top and roll it down to seal it. Once all samosas have been formed, heat about 2 inches worth of oil in a large heavy pot to about 275ºF. Fry in batches for about 5 minutes each side, or until golden brown. Drain excess oil and serve hot!

*If you don’t want to buy a bunch of random spices you COULD use curry powder. Still I recommend using the individual spices, they’re cheap if you can score some at an asian grocery (T&T) and let you have more control over the flavor of your filling