Potato Samosas..

It's a nice morning, its sunny and warm and I am planning to make a cake, maybe an elaborate meal, maybe go out and get the flowers I bought last week planted , maybe weed a bit......but all end up castles in the air, as finally my little one decides what I should do and should not do and zaps my energy.

My friend calls up and asks me if I am going to buy potatoes.. I hedge and say I don't feel like going out, thinking she is asking me to leave the comfort of my home on such a busy day..but she was just saying..don't buy potatoes, she just bought a sack of giant oversized baking potatoes and was sending some over.

So how big can they be? Well, they turn out to be a pound each, about the size of my palm and fat. What is the first thing that would come to your mind with potatoes?
Puri Bhaji? Aloo subji? Baked potatoes? Mashed potatoes?
Guess where my mind wandered to? Samosas..Giant crisp hot, mouth burning hot samosas!

I don't usually bother making these Potato samosas... the Delhi style.. love those monstrous sized flaky pastry filled with spiced potatoes, not like the petite Malabar meat samosas and not like the cocktail itsy bitsy samosas made in spring roll wrappers. We usually drive down to buy these samosas from a restaurant nearby or just use the freezer ones.

In my days in Delhi, there was a wonderful samosa shop in our shopping area...walking distance, no need for a car!!
Some evenings,(when mom didn't make something yummy) I used to run down to that halwai and order a fresh batch of samosas and garam garam jalebis.
You can't enter the shop..its a dirty mess of cooking..more like a kitchen in action..people hustling about, kneading, pouring, mixing..all labor intensive actions, while the halwai, a jovial fat guy in a dhoti sat near a couple of large cast iron woks, stirring and frying jalebis in one and samosas in the other.
Visions were flashing... waiting for the fresh samosas to be dunked into the oil..they sink deep down into the wat of oil as they are slid in and then surface up for air as they get fried and puff up. ...and the rush to get home before it cools down and then munching them with pudina/Mint chutney and tamarind chutney..and hot dripping jalebis!!

For me, samosas and jalebis always go together...now though they are both in a different country and divorced and living separately. The crust of those samosas were like eating Matri, a flaky crunchy fried circle of maida that's eaten with tea/coffee as a snack.

Anyway, I had to make them and I did have a recipe that I used to use in my torn old book. My crust is not as flaky as the store bought one but then that's due to the water I mix the dough. For flakier crust, use more oil and very little water. It's almost like making pastry dough. And though the size of these samosas turned out to be small( i can only make the Malabar sized ones!!) and the taste is nowhere near the ones from my memories, the exercise in making these samosas was fun.


You Will Need:
Potatoes: 250 gm, or two giant baking potatoes
Onion- 1 medium sized one
Green Chilies-3-4
Ginger Grated-1 tsp
Green Peas- 1 cup cooked
Coriander(whole) -1 tsp, crushed coarsely
Cumin seeds-1 tsp
Aamchoor/Dry Mango Powder-1 tsp
Red Chili Powder-1 tsp
Garam Masala powder- a pinch.
Salt
Cilantro leaves- 3 tbsp chopped

Preparation:
Boil the potatoes (as a whole in the pressure cooker or cut up and boiled in lots of water and drained.)Peel the potatoes and smash them into small pieces. There should be some tiny lumps, not big chinks.

Chop the onions finely and fry them in very little oil till they turn transparent and then add the chilies, ginger, boiled peas, crushed coriander, and all other spices. Add the potatoes too and mix well. Taste and add salt as needed. Add more or less of spices. It should be spicy and tangy. Add the cilantro leaves in the end.

Prepare the dough: Mix 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour with 1/2 cup whole wheat and 1/2 tsp salt. Add 3 tbsp heated ghee or oil and mix well into crumbles. Add water little by little( you will need about 1 cup of water) till it forms into a tight but pliable dough. Use more oil and less water if you prefer. Let it rest for at least 20 minutes before rolling out. The crust doesn't puff up like puris, just stays as layers and layers of crispiness. Piercing the rolled dough before filling it helps. If the dough feels too springy, let it rest for a minute in between rolling out.

I make the samosas by rolling out the dough into a big thick circle and then cutting it into 4. See the photorial here. But this is another method I saw online and maybe easier for most people. For me, the quarter method is much faster, though the samosas are smaller..maybe better for our waists.:)

Divide the dough into equal balls. Apply a little dry flour to each ball when rolling into a circle of 4″ diameter. Cut each circle into two and lightly dampen the edges of each semicircle with water. Shape each semicircle onto a cone by pressing the cut edges together. Place a spoonful of the potato-pea filling into the cone and seal the edges well (apply some water on the edges if they do not seal well). Repeat this procedure with the rest of the balls.

Deep fry in medium-hot peanut oil in batches on medium flame till crisp and golden brown. Remove onto a paper towel. Serve with pudina and tamarind chutney.

Pazham Pori or is it Appam? /Smushy Plantain Fritters

If I stay away from the computer for too long then I feel hesitant to come back and blog..it's like entering a party late and hoping you haven't missed out on the happenings.
I had another exam to cover last week and I had a blogging ban by my better half so resisted spending all my online time surfing aimlessly. So I wrote anyway but put all my thoughts into draft, saving it with the intention of blogging everyday! This week, kept wondering which one to start with and hesitated...finally got tired of seeing the same post and decided to change it before people unsubscribe to my feed burner!

The weather is changing for the better and the days are getting longer, meaning I am out of the house longer... taking the kids to their myriad activities and then to the park etc..Dinner seems to come in the way of savoring the sunlight. It's so beautiful all around now... with all the dry dead brushes and bare branches all covered with flowers and leaves.

When there is so much greenery sprouting around, it's hard to sit down and put it into words. The lushness of the new leaves, the soft carpets of the lawns, the feathery leaves on the trees....the light green reminds me of the diminishing paddy fields but only just so.. the green in Kerala is a vivid green, contrasting so deeply with the red laterite soil that it stays in the mind long after the image has faded.

Laterite is quarried and cut into blocks and used as brickstones for house-building. They are used for rough walls between properties and for lining wells and ponds. The laterite is a soft stone with surface texture and it allows the roots of the plants to penetrate it, becoming a planting bed if the surface is not closed with plaster. When the walls are broken down, the blocks are crumbled and worked back into the earth

The rambling vines and undergrowth cover every inch of the laterite walls to create a symphony of varying shades of green and red. The undergrowth is always renewing itself and the color is always lush. Truly an organic and sustainable building material!!!

Here in two more weeks, the lushness will give away to a dull green, as if the leaves were forever there and the greenery will fade into the background. The lawns will slowly reveal what they really are.. just dry wild grass forced into submission by weekly (expensive) mowing and endless watering...the trappings of suburbia.



But let's enjoy the intermittent spring showers and new growth it brings. What's the best way to celebrate this cool weather? Maybe fry up some fritters and a cup of tea...hmm...maybe masala tea. These plantain fritters can be made with regular bananas too. I end up making this whenever I buy plantains and they get too ripe too soon.

You will need:
Fully ripe blackish colored plantains-2
All Purpose Unbleached Flour (Maida)-1 cup
Rice flour (optional)- 1 tbsp
Sugar -1tbsp
Kalonji/Onion Seeds - a pinch
Water - 1/4 cup
Salt -a very small pinch.
Oil - for frying

Preparation Method:

1. Peel and cut the ripe banana into 2 sections. (Wash your hands well if you are using hands.) Then smash the banana with your hands into a mushy mess. It should have some lumps left for texture and should not be a puree. This is fun.... you could even get your kids to do it. They enjoy the messiness of the banana squirting thru the fingers.
2. Mix all the dry ingredients together and then add water slowly while stirring to make a smooth paste. It should be lump free and not too watery. If it does become watery, add a little more flour. Add the banana and mix it well.
3. Heat oil in a skillet. You could fry this in a Unniappam chatti/Aebleskiver Pan too.
4. Slowly slide one spoonful/dollop of the banana mix into the oil.You could fry 4 or 5 at a time based on the size of your pan. Deep fry on medium heat till it turns a golden brown. Make sure the oil is hot before adding the batter. (It's hot if you put a drop of the batter and it rises to the top in a second.)If the oil is not hot enough, the fritters will absorb too much oil. Once it heats up, you could reduce it to medium heat. Drain onto paper towels and serve.