Saturday 5 May 2012

This time for Africa - Samosas

Samosas are well known from India and they can filled with a lot of delicious things - veg or meat. However, the first time I got in contact with samosas was from my Kenyan friend Maggie. She used to always make them for us and we enjoyed them all very much. That was - if I'm allowed to say so at my relative young age - a long time ago. Back then I also made a note of the recipe (well, in her version it was not so difficult) and did them also on my own.
Again, though, this is quite some time in the past when I did it last.
The recipe was also in my old notebook that I found again some weeks ago. Today, I thought, would be a lovely day to have samosas. By the way, you can also eat them cold the next day and they still taste great.


For the dough you need the following:
500 g of flour
a good pinch of salt
60 ml oil
12-15 tablespoons of water 

Put the flour to a bowl and add the salt and oil. The water you add bit by bit, depending on how things work out with your dough. After all, you don't want it to wet. You can use a hand mixer or whatever other suitable electronic device you desire to put to action for it. I myself prefer to use my hands, always ready for some cooking work out. Before you put your hands to action, you can just roughly mix everything with a fork and when it starts coming together ... go for it!
Once the dough looks and feels right - smooth and elastic - put it to rest for 30 minutes. Hopefully you don't need to put yourself to rest as well, because it was too hard to knead the dough vigorously with your hands!
Rather you could devote your time to prepare the filling.

Here you need:
500 g of minced meat (whatever you desire - I used pork and beef mixed)
a big bunch of chives
another big bunch of parsley
salt, pepper, paprika
oil for the pan

Heat your pan up and add the oil, then the minced meat. The chives and parsley you can chop finely. Then season the meat to your liking. If you like it hot, you can use chili as well, but think of the others as well, who want to taste your samosas. Add your chopped parsley and chives to the pan and continue to fry until the meat has got sufficient colour.

Let your meat mixture cool down a bit. 
Then roll out your dough  and ... it now depends what tools you have. Someone gave me this plastic cutter/filler (or whatever I shall call it) as a gift. In the beginning I was a bit opposed to this device, but when I used it this time it worked out just well.
Otherwise, when you have rolled out your dough thinly, cut it into triangle shapes, put two tablespoons of filling (or how much you reasonably manage) in the middle and then fold the corners over the middle together one after another and make sure that everything is securely sealed. You don't want to have the filling come out when you deep-fry them.

When you have finished preparing the first few you can start deep-frying them. When you take them out of the fat you can put them on a plate layered with paper towels.

In my memories the green of the chives and parsley would shine through. I didn't achieve it this time, though. Serve the samosas together with a nice salad and be happy!



While shopping yesterday I stumbled upon some sweet potatoes. I finished the whole meal off with them. I wrapped them in aluminium foil and put them in the oven for one hour at 200°C. Then cut them in half and put them briefly under a grill with a almond-batida de coco-cinnamon butter and have them as pudding.




There is one more thing that is on my mind. Why did I call this post "This time for Africa ..."? Well, lately I have been listening a lot to this song from Shakira "Waka waka (This time for Africa)". I can't get it out of my head - at least for today ... "... when you fall get, up ... oh oh ... ... this time for Africa" (I don't think you want to actually hear me singing!)

4 comments:

  1. I love samosas and these look very good!!

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    1. Thank you! I should do them more often and try some different versions as well.

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  2. And a FABULOUS entry it is too! THANKS so much for linking up!

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    Replies
    1. Thank you very much, Karen. As I mentioned, normally, they should look more herby!

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