Samosa is the globally recognised quintessential Indian snack, bearing the symbol of tradition for many years. What sets it apart is the triangular shape, quite an artistic expression for any fried snack. Its sheer popularity across the length and breadth of sub-continent placed it way ahead of its competitors. Samosa wears a different name in Bengal, and known as Singara, equally popular as anywhere else.

Although samosa shape requires a bit of effort to be folded in the right way, I tried to be as lucid as I could over this recipe. Samosa filling can not be necessarily of potatoes and vegetables and you can be creative in your own way and even can use meat. Enjoy…..

Ingredients for 6 pieces :

For dough :

1. Plain flour – ½ cup
2. Ajwain – ½ teaspoon
3. Pinch of salt
4. Oil – 1 tbspoon
5. Lukewarm water

For filling :

1. Boiled potato – 2
2. Small pieces of cauliflower – ½ cup
3. Green peas – ¼ cup
4. Chopped green chilli – 1 – 2
5. Panch phoron – ½ teaspoon
6. Roasted peanut – 10 – 12
7. Pinch of turmeric
8. Salt to taste
9. Oil – 2 tbspoon

Extra oil for deep-frying the samosa

Procedure :

Shift together the flour, ajwain, salt and oil in a large bowl and mix them very well. Add lukewarm water, little at a time, to make the dough. The dough should not be very soft or too hard, it should rather be semi-soft. Keep it aside in an air tight container for minimum 20 minutes.

In the meanwhile lets prepare the filling.

Sprinkle some salt over boiled potato and roughly mash with a fork. There is no need to mash them very finely.

Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Add “panch phoron”, saute it for a while, then add the cauliflower, salt and turmeric powder and fry them till get cooked.

Add green peas, green chillies and pea nuts, fry for another couple of minutes.

After that add the mashed potato and mix very well. Check for salt and add if it is needed. Fry the mixture for few minutes. Now your feeling is ready to stuff the samosa.

Now divide your dough into 3 equal parts and make balls out of them.

Now roll each ball in an elliptical shape on an oily surface. The size of the ellipse will be bigger than puri but slightly smaller than chapati. Cut the ellipse from the middle with a sharp knife.

Apply water by your finger on the straight line of the half ellipse and pull back the edges, seal them up. Now you will have a cone. Fill this cone with the spicy potato mixture.

Now make the backbone of the samosa so that it can stand on its back. Again apply water around the circle of the cone. Now pull back and fold the dough a bit, just opposite to the joining line of the cone and then join it to the counter side to seal the samosa. In this way prepare all your six samosas.

Now heat sufficient amount of oil in a frying pan over medium heat and fry the samosa.

Serve hot with chatni or tomato sauce.

Note :

1. The oil should not be very hot while frying the samosa. Samosa will take few minutes to be completely cooked  from inside. So don’t do it in hurry.
2. ‘Panch phoron’ is a mixture of five spices – fenugreek seed, black cumin seed, cumin seed, radhuni and fennel seeds in equal parts. Sometimes black mustard seeds are used instead of radhuni.