Making Samosas From Scratch
30th December 2022 - New Experience Number 42.
I do love a veggie samosa. A perfect parcel of street food goodness, or a tasty side dish. It’s something I’ve always bought, (and devoured quickly!) so I decided to try and recreate the flavour of some of the delicious ones I’ve tried for myself. It was time to give it a go and try making a samosa from scratch.
Tasty Treats
You’ll most likely have come across samosas at some point. They are deep fried triangular shaped pastry snacks, filled with a delicious savoury mixture, usually including peas, onions and potatoes. Of course there are numerous variations on my very simplified explanation.
These lovely South Asian treats have been around for a very long time, and can differ depending on which country, region and family recipe is followed. The word known in English as Samosa can apparently be traced way back to the Middle Persian word of Sanbosag meaning triangular pastry.
Method for Making Samosas From Scratch
Looking into recipes, I found one which seemed fairly straightforward, with just 3 steps.
- Making the dough
- Making the filling
- Putting it all together and making the traditional triangular samosa shape
Step One
The first step was preparing the filling. The vegetables, stock and spices simmered together in the pan giving the kitchen a delicious fragrance.
Step Two
Making the pastry dough was step two. Following the recipe to the letter, it appeared to have turned out ok. As always, the real test would be in the tasting, so I kept my fingers crossed at this point, and left it to rest for thirty minutes.
Step Three - Putting It All Together
Once the pastry was ready I sectioned it into twelve pieces.
To make the tasty pastry casing into the familiar triangular shape, I rolled each of the 12 pieces into a ball, then flattened them into a circle.
I brushed the edges of the circle with water so that they would stick together, then shaped each one around my fingers to make a cone shape.
Lastly I stuffed a spoonful of the filling inside and sealed the final edge of the pastry.
The first one was quite thin as I had been a bit measly with the filling.
The pastry stretched tightly around the filling on the second bulging one. I’d been a bit heavy handed this time as I was trying to gauge the right quantity.
Finally they were all made, and mostly looked about an equal shape and size.
Sizzling Samosa
The final step was frying the little triangular parcels until they were a nice light bubbly golden brown.
They looked pretty good once they were done! Perhaps a bit on the pale side compared to ones I’ve bought and had elsewhere, but not bad for a first attempt.
Sampling Samosas Made From Scratch
There was a satisfying flaky crunch on taking a bite, but it took a fair bit of chewing as the pastry had turned out to be quite heavy.
The flavour was good though – simple ingredients brought to life with a bit of spice. A dip of mango chutney on the side and these were a great filling snack.
It feels like there’s lots of opportunity to play around with the different spices in the mix too, it’s no wonder there are so many different recipes! I’m sure I’ll be making these again and trying different ingredients. Hopefully I’ll get the pastry right with a bit of practice!
We had a feast of a snack as we enjoyed them alongside the onion bhaji’s I made for the first time too.
Want To Try It Yourself?
- There are lots of recipes for making samosas. I followed one for vegetable samosas from BBC Good Food
- If you’ve got a favourite chef, why not see if they have a recipe for samosas you can try?
- There are lots of recipes for samosas on line, you’re sure to find one that whets your appetite.
Cost Of Experience
- The recipe I followed used ingredients which I already had in.
- If you needed to buy everything to make these, it would come to around £7 depending on where you shop.
- You’ll also have enough of the ingredients left over for either more samosas or other kitchen creations.
Recommendations
- Don’t roll out your pastry too thinly as you don’t want it to break around the filling.
- Careful when you’re frying!
- Mine looked a little bit pale and I think I should have left them cooking for a little bit longer. Take them out of the frying pan when you’re happy with how they look.
- I can highly recommend having them with a dip such as mango chutney, lime pickle or a cooling raita, to really enhance the flavours.