Potato Samosas
Serves: about 18 depending on size
 
Crispy fried pastry stuffed with spicy potatoes.
Ingredients
PASTRY
  • 2 cups/240g all purpose/plain flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • ½ teaspoon ajwain seeds (thymol seeds, ajwon seeds, bishops weed)
  • ½ cup/118mL water (may need more or less depending on flour)
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil/avocado oil
POTATO FILLING
  • 5 medium potatoes, boiled and coarsely mashed
  • 2 tablespoon oil : coconut, olive or avocado
  • 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
  • ½ teaspoon crushed coriander seeds (optional)
  • 1 teaspoon ground coriander
  • 2 dried red chillies
  • ½ teaspoon red cayenne chilli
  • 1 teaspoon turmeric
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • oil for frying: peanut, sunflower, avocado or coconut
Instructions
POTATO FILLING
  1. Heat the oil in a fry pan until hot.
  2. Add the cumin seeds, coriander seeds if using, and dried red chillies.
  3. When fragrant and popping slightly, add the mashed potatoes and mix through.
  4. Add the red cayenne chilli, turmeric and ground coriander powder and mix through.
  5. Add the salt and check to see if seasoned properly.
  6. Pull off the heat and tip onto a plate to cool.
  7. Let the filling cool before stuffing the pastry
PASTRY
  1. Make the dough for the pastry.
  2. Add the salt, oil and the ajwain seeds to the flour and mix.
  3. Add water little at a time to make a soft dough.
  4. You may need more or less water depending on how dry your flour is.
  5. At high altitudes like mine, we have a drier climate so I always need more water for my flour.
  6. Mine took about ⅔ cups.
  7. Just start with ½ cup water, add little by little till you get a nice soft, not sticky dough.
  8. Put aside to rest.
ROLLING AND SHAPING
  1. Once the dough has rested for about 15 minutes, portion out into 18 balls.
  2. Roll out the ball of dough to about 6 inches(15cm) round and ¼ inch (6.5mm) thick.
  3. If you roll it out to thin, the potato mixture tends to break through and the dough also sticks while you are rolling and shaping the rest.
  4. You can roll out several and keep covered before stuffing with the mixture.
  5. Using a pizza cutter cut the round in half to get 2 semi circles.
  6. A paste of flour and water to make glue, tends to work better to seal the samosas.
  7. Rub the cut straight edges with some glue and taking into your hands, overlap the edges slightly to seal the pastry into a cone shape.
  8. Press firmly to seal.
  9. Add a teaspoon of potato into the cone, don't over fill, but with enough potato and still room to seal the edge shut.
  10. Smear some more glue on the top edges of the open pastry and seal shut.
  11. You can use a fork to crimp the edges.
  12. Place on a floured tray or one lined with parchment paper.
  13. You can leave them uncovered while shaping the rest so the dough can dry out a bit.
  14. I left mine uncovered in the fridge to fry the next day too.
  15. Pastry comes out nice and crisp.
  16. Once again, I don't 'deep fry'.
  17. My deep frying is about an inch or inch and a half of oil in my cast iron skillet.
  18. I drop in about 4 or 5 samosas at a time and let them brown.
  19. Flip over and brown the second side and then drain on paper towels.
  20. Repeat with the rest.
  21. Serve with chutneys or ketchup and hot sauce.
Notes
I have never tried baking this recipe of samosas. They just don't get that crispy shell when you bake them. I have used a dough that was more like an empanada or pie pastry dough and baked those. They were good but once again, not the crispy samosas most are accustomed to. I don't make samosas often and usually only during Ramadan. So, I go all out and just fry them, even though I abhor frying (just the frying part, I LOVE eating fried foods though :))
Recipe by Coffee and Crumpets at http://www.coffeeandcrumpets.com/potato-samosas/