I find starters the best every time I eat at an Indian restaurant. The bhaji, pakoras and samosas are often so good that I end up having too many of them and feeling somewhat full even before the main course. All the starters are delicious, but samosas – Indian, fried, triangular-shaped pastry with a spicy potato and veggie stuffing – are my favorite.
The other day I decided to try making my own samosas. At that time, I wasn’t really sure what I was getting myself into. But was pleasantly surprised to find out that samosas are actually quite easy to make. Most of the ingredients are easy to find and it took me less than an hour to make 8 super yummy samosas. The dough was made in minutes and the stuffing is very easy, consisting of only potatoes, veggies and spices. Folding and stuffing the samosas took a little trial and error, but proved quite doable. I definitely recommend trying it: they are super yummy and something you can impress your friends with!
One thing that helped greatly was watching a video of an expert doing it. I found two great ones on youtube, with expert Manjula – a lovely Indian lady with a cute accent – demonstrating all steps of making samosas. They are quite funny, but even more so instructive and spot on. I am including them below. The first video is 8:30 minutes and shows how to make the dough and the stuffing. Part 2 lasts 5:30 minutes. It starts with Manjula folding and stuffing the samosas and ends with the frying process.
I only made two changes, substituting corn starch for semolina flower (which I didn’t have in the house) and using broccoli rather than green peas (which I simply preferred).
The hard to understand ingredient is “garam masala”, a mix of spices that is used a lot in Indian dishes and good to have at home. Among many other spices it includes cumin, clovers, and cardamom. And I also made some tamarind sauce, by mixing tamarind paste with some water and sugar. You can get both garam masala and tamarind paste at your local toko or Indian / Asian store.
Oh, and in case things go wrong, here is a great place for Indian delivery. Just give Indian Express on Pieter Langedijkstraat, behind Overtoom, a quick call. And they will bring you some great samosas, bhaji and pakoras. And they will even be happy to bring a main course if you still feel like having one after all those super yummy starters.