Samosa (potato filled prism shaped savories)

This recipe involves Samosas (stuffed prism shaped savories) filled with spiced potatoes. You can fill up any semi-dry filling you desire into Samosas i.e. minced meat, spinach, paneer etc.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups Maida or Pastry flour
• 2 tbsp ghee (clarified butter)
• Salt to taste

For Filling:

• 2 large potatoes, boiled, peeled and mashed roughly
• ½ cup green peas
• 1 small onion sliced
• 1 tsp raw mango powder (amchur)
• 1/2 tsp red chili powder
• 1/2 tsp garam masala
• Salt to taste
• 2 tbsp coriander leaves chopped
• Cooking oil for deep frying

Method:

• Prepare potato stuffing: Heat 2 tbsp of oil in a pan. Add chopped onions and chopped green chili. Fry over medium heat, until light brown. Add green peas, grated ginger, turmeric powder, red chili powder, garam masala powder, amchur and salt. Fry for 2 minutes. Add mashed potatoes and stir fry for about 3-4 minutes. Add chopped green coriander leaves and remove from heat. Stuffing is ready.
• Prepare dough: Sieve the flour; add salt and oil into it. Mix well. Add a little warm water at a time to it, to make a firm, smooth dough. Keep the dough for half an hour, covered with wet cloth.
• Prepare Samosas: Make small balls of almost equal size and roll out the balls to oblong approximately 6 inches in length and 5 inches in width. You can roll out circle also, only the shape of samosa will be little different.

• Cut each oblong into 2 with a knife. Each half makes one samosa.

• Take one half and lightly wet its straight edge with water. Fold it into a cone with the help of middle finger as shown in the picture, overlapping the wet edges and pressing gently to seal well.

• Keep the cone carefully in the hole made by joining thumb and first finger of left hand.

• Fill this cone 3/4 full with the potato filling made earlier.

• Lightly wet the open edges of the cone and press together to seal well.

• Samosa is ready to be fried.

• Use all the dough up in a similar manner and Keep these samosas for 10 minutes covered with moist cloth.
• Deep fry the Samosas on medium heat until golden brown. Drain on paper towels.
• Serve with Tamarind Chutney and/or Green Coriander Chutney.

Do You Know?

'All-purpose Flour', 'Pastry Flour', 'Whole wheat Pastry Flour', 'Cake flour' are widely considered as substitutes for Maida

• In olden days, Maida was ‘Whole-grain flour’ made of soft white wheat, ground fine, minimum loss of ash. It is un-bleached. Nowadays, only the endosperm is ground making it more compatible with regular ‘Pastry Flour’ available in United States.
• Pastry flour is a white flour (bran and germ sifted out) made of soft wheat. Higher gluten than cake flour, lower gluten than ‘All purpose flour’, or 'Whole-wheat Pastry flour'
• The best substitute for maida are ‘Whole-wheat Pastry flour’ and ‘Pastry flour’. 'Whole-wheat Pastry flour' is the closest substitute for Maida, except that it is not stone ground.
• ‘All-purpose flour’ is acceptable to a certain extent. It is white flour (bran and germ sifted out) made with a combination of hard and soft wheat. It may be bleached, or un-bleached.
• ‘Cake flour’ is the most unacceptable substitute for maida or atta. It is white flour made of soft (Red, White, or Combination) wheat. It is the lowest gluten, no ash. It is bleached to support sugar without collapsing