Samosa

Whenever you enter a restaurant the first thing that comes to your table is the menu card, you forget your hunger. You start browsing through the card and debating in the your mind whether to order this or that. This is exactly what happened to me when I was asked to pick a menu card and prepare three items from the card for the Blogging Marathon BM#47. I kept reading the cards and debating in mind what to prepare. After a lot of thinking I choose this one here. This is for the Day 1 of the Marathon, Samosa.

Samosa is basically a fried pastry with savoury filling of spiced potatoes, peas or carrots.

Do you know that Samosa , is a popular brother the famous vada pav! The crisp outer crust of the samosa entices the person to have one more, and even one more!

As I was making these samosas it brought found memories, when my daughter was studying in school in the primary section, she would regularly make a demand for this and I use to make mini ones so that she could eat it without spilling and staining her school uniform. It also brought a another memory, when I recently visited my daughter in Brussels, I had made around fifty of these samosa's for a community lunch. The community people simply loved them, the children couldn't stop eating them. In the end, the incharge told me that I should stop making more of these or else this would continue till dinner time. The response was amazing. These were a novelty for them, gave me great joy preparing it for them and making Mumbai Samosa famous ..... giving it an international status.

Ingredients
For The Dough

1 Cup All purpose flour
1 Tablespoon Ghee - melted
1/2 Teaspoon Carom seeds (ajwain)
Salt to taste

For The Stuffing
1 Tablespoon oil
1 Small Onion - finely chopped
1/2 Teaspoon Mustard seeds

A pinch of Asafoetida
1 Teaspoon ginger-green chilli paste

A pinch of Turmeric powder
3 Medium sized Potatoes - boiled , peeled and cut into cubes
2 Tablespoon Green peas - boiled
1/4 tsp Dried Mango powder (amchur)
1/2 Teaspoon Garam masala

1/2 Teaspoon Coriander - cumin powder
1 Tablespoon Coriander leaves - chopped
Salt to taste
Oil for deep-frying

Method
For the dough
Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and knead into a semi stiff dough using enough water. Cover the dough with a wet muslin cloth and keep aside for 15 minutes.

Knead again till smooth and elastic and divide the dough into 2 equal portions. Cover with a wet muslin cloth and keep aside.

For the stuffing

Heat the oil in a kadhai and add the mustard seeds.When the seeds crackle, add the asafoetida and ginger-green chilli paste and sauté on a medium flame for a few seconds. Add the potatoes, green peas, coriander-cumin powder, dry mango powder, garam masala and salt, mix well and cook on a medium flame for a minute, while stirring continuously.
Remove from the flame, mash lightly using the back of a spoon and add chopped coriander, cool, divide the stuffing into equal portions. Keep aside.