My version of Potato Samosas: A delicious side-dish, snack or finger food

With the rain season and its humidity and high temperatures keeping us in their hot grip, using the oven for preparing a side dish for our weekly barbecue was out of the question.

Since I’m a fan of Indian dishes, and I wanted to have a side dish which involved potatoes and dough, while still being somewhat finger food, I decided to try my Samosa-forming-skills with my version of potato Samosas.

The freshly fried Samoas are arranged on a kitchen towel to drain excess oil

Let’s have a look at the ingredients I used:

Ingredients: (for 14 Samosas)

For the dough:

• 260 g flour (I used bread flour, but all purpose will work perfectly, too)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 65 ml oil
• 100 ml water

For the filling:

• 3-4 medium potatoes (total weight about 1/2 kilo)
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 1 teaspoon curry powder
• 1 teaspoon paprika powder
• 1/4 teaspoon red chili powder (or more, according to your taste)
• About 500 ml frying oil

Preparation:

First of all, we’ll prepare the filling.

For that, boil or steam the potatoes until they are well done. I usually pinch them with a fork all over, and then steam them for about 30 – 45 minutes, depending on their size. When they are done, take them out of the pot, and let them cool down.

Peel them when they have cooled down enough to handle them, and place them inside a bowl. Add the spices and the oil, and mash everything with a potato masher until you have a homogenous purée.

Place a paper towel (to soak up excess liquid) below a lid on the bowl, and let the mashed potatoes cool down.

In the meantime, we’ll continue with the dough.

The freshly formed Samosas are ready to be fried

Add the flour and salt to a bowl, and mix well with two chopsticks.

Next, add the oil, mix shortly with the chopsticks, and then, start rubbing the flower and oil between your fingers until all the oil is incorporated into the flour. This process will take about 5 minutes, and you’ll be done when you have a mixture that resembles crumbs.

To test, if the oil is well mixed with the flour, take a bit of the mixture, and press it flat onto your palm. If it forms a shape, without crumbling, everything is mixed well. If it doesn’t, continue to rub the oil and flour for a few more minutes between your fingers.

Then, start adding the water, a little bit at a time. Work the water into the crumbly mixture, but don’t really knead the dough thoroughly. Less is more in this case. The mixture should come together to a quite stiff dough.

Cover the dough bowl with a damp towel, and let it rest for about 45 minutes.

Shortly before the dough has finished resting, take a small bowl, and mix a tablespoon of flour with a bit of water, to have some glue for your Samosas.

The homemade Samosas are being fried in a wok

When the dough has rested, knead it quickly, and then divide it into 7 equal portions.

While working on one piece of the dough, keep the others under the moist towel, otherwise they will dry out.

Roll the dough-piece into an oval shape of about 15 cm long diameter, and slice it into halves on the smaller diameter.

Then, take one half of the dough oval, and apply the glue you mixed on the straight side, where you just cut. Then, bring the two ends of the cut side together, to form a cone.

Scoop about 1 – 2 tablespoons of the filling into the cone, making sure that you don’t overfill the Samosa.

Next, apply the flour-glue around the inside of the open side of the cone, to seal it.

Set aside on a plate, cover with a towel, and continue with the next dough piece, until you have prepared and filled all the Samosas.

Now comes the cooking part: Pour enough frying oil into a wok or large skillet, and heat until a wooden spatula starts making bubbles when you put it inside the oil.

Lower the heat a bit, and fry the Samosas in batches of 4 – 5, each of them about 20 minutes, until they are of a beautiful brown color. Take the out of the oil, and place them on a spider strainer which you liked with a kitchen towel, to absorb the excess oil.

Freshly fried, homemade Potato Samosas, arranged on a small plate with chili sauce

Enjoy the Samosas while they are still warm.

We used chili sauce for dipping them, but all kinds of chutneys will be a perfect companion, too.

Have you ever tried Samosas? Did you like them? My family liked them very much, and they’ll surely be on our plates again, soon.