My First Samosas–Epic Fail!

Today I finally got around to making my first ever batch of samosas. This is something I have been wanting to do for months if not years – we both adore samosas and since they are made from basic ingredients that most people have, I thought it shouldn’t be so hard.

The filling was a doddle to make, with potatoes, peas, onion, garlic, and various spices – I substituted lime juice (and added some zest) for the lemon juice as I thought it went better with curry spices.

I had found several samosa recipes online and none of them quite ticked all the boxes for me, so I came up with my own version and as far as the filling went, this was a success.

In the first photo you can see the samosas being assembled. At the back on the right is the frying pan with the filling in it – cold by this time. To the left is a baking tray with one completed samosa on it – this was the second batch, being made while the first was in the oven.

In front of the baking tray is the next batch of pastry ready to be rolled out. I divided the total amount into four equal parts and rolled them out thinly, and cut it into strips to make each samosa.

To the right you can see a (very messy) bowl of “glue” – this is a flour and water paste to stick the pastry to itself as you assemble the samosa, so it doesn’t fall apart in the oven.

At the front is a samosa being assembled. I’ve done the first two folds, and created the pocket which has been filled with the samosa filling.

I had to go onto Youtube to find some instructions on how to fold the samosas, and it took a while to get my head round this – I kept doing a bit and it didn’t look right, so I’d wash my hands and go into the sitting room and watch the video again – at times like this one could do with a kitchen computer that was protected from cooking mess lol! Anyway, my eventual solution was to cut a strip of paper and fold it while watching the video, marking each fold in order and indicating on the paper where the “glue” was to be applied. This was very satisfactory and I soon got the hang of folding them with no problem at all.

Here is a batch of samosas ready for the oven.

This is the first batch out of the oven. I was very disappointed! Firstly, they didn’t go nice and golden brown and crispy, and secondly, the pastry was hard, and not crisp and flaky. I went through and told my hubby I wasn’t sure they’d even be edible…

I served them as I usually serve (bought) samosas if we want them as a main meal – on a bed of spicy fried brown rice and vegetables (I make up a big batch of this and freeze portions for future use) –and added a tablespoon of plain yoghurt. It was easier to eat them in our fingers because I think they might have been a bit difficult to cut!

My hubby was extremely nice about them and said they “looked nice” (which they didn’t) and “tasted delicious” (which they didn’t). Ah well, it’s a good thing he likes them because I hate throwing away food, and we’re going to have to eat them lol!

The owner of the corner shop at the end of our street is Indian and he makes his own samosas, and my hubby often buys them. I thought I really should make our own, and thinking about it, I think he might use ready-made filo pastry for his – given the time it takes to make, and then roll out, the pastry, I wouldn’t have thought he’d have time for all that. So I think next time, I am going to use filo pastry, which should give a much better result.

You can deep fry them instead of baking them, but I don’t like deep frying because for starters it can be dangerous, and also it’s very fattening, and lastly, I wouldn’t know what to do with all that oil afterwards! So I oven bake when possible.

If you look carefully at the last picture, you can see that the baking tray is resting on the pulled-down main oven door. I cooked them in the top oven, and in the bottom (main) oven you can see several boxes of chocolates! People always laugh when we tell them we keep the choccies in the oven! One of our cats adores chocolate and she’s not allowed it because like dogs, cats are unable to digest chocolate and it can make them really ill. She has been known to help herself and is very good at opening things! Our cupboards are all full of other things, so we keep them in the oven! (Most of these choccies are Christmas ones. I am being very abstemious so as not to wreck all the hard work I am putting in to my diet!)

Watch this space for further samosa progress. I am determined to get there in the end. Fortunately this time, none of the ingredients was particularly expensive, and I had most of it in stock so it’s no great loss that they were such a failure. At least I have learnt from my mistake, and I have also devised my own recipe through the process, and I have learnt how to fold them, so I suppose the enterprise was not a complete failure!