Sweet Potato Samosas
Hand folded samosas with a thin, blistered, properly crisp shell and a spiced sweet potato and pea filling, fried in two stages.
Servings 16 samosas
Ingredients
For the Pastry
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon ajwain carom seeds
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 5 tablespoons ghee or neutral oil
- ½ cup cold water approximately, added a spoonful at a time
For the Filling
- 1 ¼ pounds sweet potatoes peeled and cut in ⅓ inch dice
- 3 tablespoons neutral oil
- 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
- 1 small onion finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon fresh ginger grated
- 2 green chilies minced
- ¾ cup frozen peas
- 1 teaspoon ground coriander
- ½ teaspoon ground cumin
- ½ teaspoon Kashmiri chili powder
- ¼ teaspoon turmeric
- 1 teaspoon amchoor dried mango powder
- ½ teaspoon garam masala
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt
- ⅓ cup cilantro chopped
To Seal and Fry
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour whisked with 2 tablespoons water into a paste
- 6 cups neutral oil for deep frying, about 2 inches deep
Instructions
Make the Dough
- Rub the ghee into the flour with your fingertips for a full 2 minutes, along with the ajwain and salt, until the mixture looks like damp sand and holds its shape when squeezed.
- Add cold water a tablespoon at a time and gather the dough together, stopping as soon as it comes together. It should feel stiff, closer to firm modeling clay than to bread dough. Knead it smooth for a minute, wrap it, and rest it 30 minutes.
Make the Filling
- Heat the oil over medium heat and add the cumin seeds. When they sizzle, add the onion and cook 5 minutes until soft and just turning gold. Stir in the ginger and green chilies for 1 minute.
- Add the diced sweet potato, coriander, ground cumin, Kashmiri chili, turmeric, salt and ¼ cup water. Cover and cook 10 to 12 minutes, until the cubes are tender but still holding their edges. Add the peas and cook 2 minutes more.
- Crush about a third of the mixture against the side of the pan with the back of a spoon. Off the heat, stir in the amchoor, garam masala and cilantro. Cool the filling completely before folding.
Fold the Samosas
- Divide the dough into 8 balls. Roll one into a thin oval about 7 inches by 5 inches, roughly the thickness of a coin, and cut it across the middle into two half circles.
- Lay a half circle with the straight edge toward you and brush that edge with flour paste. Fold one half of the straight edge over the other, overlapping by about ¼ inch, to form a cone. Press the seam firmly top to bottom and check that no light shows through.
- Spoon about 2 heaping tablespoons of cool filling into the cone, pressing out air pockets and leaving ½ inch of clear pastry at the top.
- Brush the inside of the open edge with flour paste, press the front and back together into a flat seal, fold a small pleat into the middle of that seal, and press again. Rest the finished samosas on a tray for 10 minutes.
Fry in Two Stages
- Heat 2 inches of oil to 275 degrees F. Fry 4 or 5 samosas at a time for 8 to 10 minutes, turning once. They should barely color. Rest them on a rack for at least 5 minutes.
- Raise the oil to 360 degrees F and return the samosas in batches for 2 to 3 minutes, until deep golden and blistered all over. Drain on a rack and serve hot with tamarind and mint cilantro chutneys.
Notes
- Stiff dough: add the least water the flour will take. A soft dough puffs and bubbles like a poori and goes chewy instead of crisp.
- Rub the fat in properly: two full minutes. The fat rubbed into the flour, the moyan, is what makes the shell short and crisp.
- Cool the filling completely: warm filling softens the pastry and the seams open in the oil.
- Two stage fry: 275 degrees F to dry and blister the shell, then 360 degrees F to color it. A single hot fry gives a smooth, soft, oily shell.
- Freeze raw: folded and unfried, on a tray then bagged, for up to 3 months. Fry straight from frozen with 3 extra minutes in the first stage.
- Not puff pastry: it rises into flaky layers, and a samosa shell should be thin and hard.