Idiots guide to Samosas

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Idiots guide to Samosas
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jema
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 05 7:23 pm Post subject: Idiots guide to Samosas
Anyone fancy me wrting an article on making Samosas? I love these tasty snacks, and hacing made a couple of batches this week, seem finally to be getting up the learning curve

sean
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 05 7:28 pm Post subject:
Seeing you've already got the pictures Jema............

jema
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 05 7:34 pm Post subject:

sean wrote:

Seeing you've already got the pictures Jema............

Well only of the finished article. Point is though I am not an expert on this, so is this the sort of cookery article we really want. Would people on this site be that interested?

sean
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 05 7:36 pm Post subject:
Yes I would be, seriously.

Lloyd

Joined: 24 Jan 2005
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 05 7:52 pm Post subject:
Me too!..You're well ahead of me on the learning curve!

Bugs

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 10744

Posted: Sat Mar 19, 05 8:43 pm Post subject:

Yum. Please - if it makes you feel better you can theme it "reducing your reliance on the takeaway"

What do you use for the casing...do you buy pastry from Indian grocers or by any chance, make your own? One of my housemates used to bring back gorgeous smelling/looking bags of samosas knocked up by his mum, but never bothered to find out how she did them

. I made do with filo pastry and baking them, as recommended by my student cookbook

- they're perfectly nice like that though.

Also I'm afraid of deep frying, but I'm not sure that's a problem you need to address

jema
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 05 8:58 pm Post subject:

Bugs wrote:

Yum. Please - if it makes you feel better you can theme it "reducing your reliance on the takeaway"

. I made do with filo pastry and baking them, as recommended by my student cookbook

- they're perfectly nice like that though.

Also I'm afraid of deep frying, but I'm not sure that's a problem you need to address

I confess I will buy volevon (spelling) cases and puff pastry, but aside from that I don't buy pastry. Given Samosas are meant to be incredibly cheap, it would also defeat the oject a bit.

I have on occasion used Besan flour, but I actually find the really cheap plain flour from the supermarket perfectly ok. I rub butter and salt in and make a dough using milk, recipes often say warm milk, but I don't think it makes much odds, having kneaded the dough, I out it in a carrier bag in the fridge for 30 mins.

As for frying. In my opinion like a chip, if you are going to have them do them properly. I deep fry in a bigish deep fat fryer 2 at a time. Two frying whilst I make two more.

Bugs

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 10744

Posted: Sat Mar 19, 05 9:18 pm Post subject:

jema wrote:

having kneaded the dough, I out it in a carrier bag in the fridge for 30 mins.

How thin do you need to roll them? (You can answer in the article if you like - don't want to give away all your trade secrets:) )

Quote:

In my opinion like a chip, if you are going to have them do them properly.

It's not the health thing that frightens me so much as (a) the danger and (b) the waste of the oil...there's only two of us so we're not going to get a deep fat fryer or we'd be the size of a caravan...we do very occasionally do some deep frying in a saucepan but have to time it for a few days so we feel the oil is properly used...always seems such a waste. How long does the oil in your fryer keep/how many times can you reuse it? I imagine it's better than a saucepan because of the temp and the cover.

sean
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 05 9:22 pm Post subject:
I don't deep fry that often. Using a wok cuts down on the volume of oil you need. I put the used oil into a bottle (through a fine sieve) and find that it keeps indefinitely enough for my purposes.

jema
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 05 9:27 pm Post subject:

I find oil keeps a long time, and can be resused a lot. The oil I used today for the 25-30 Samosas I cooked, was not fresh and looked pretty iffy by the end, but as it cooled I imagine it has come back ok.

As for thickness. I used a slightely bigger than golf ball size piece of dough, roll that into a 6" diameter rough circle, and cut in two, so I have two semi circles each of which will make a Samosa.

One of my tips would be, that if the pastry is too thin, it make develop a hole, which is obviously very bad news. So err on the thick size and adjust as you gain experience.

Bugs

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 10744

Posted: Sat Mar 19, 05 9:28 pm Post subject:

Sean wrote:

Using a wok cuts down on the volume of oil you need. I put the used oil into a bottle (through a fine sieve) and find that it keeps indefinitely enough for my purposes.

That's handy to know...have to see if we can dig out a wok from the attic.

Do you use the same oil for different things (eg, garlic/onions/meat/sweet) or does it taint?

jema
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 05 9:31 pm Post subject:

Bugs wrote:

That's handy to know...have to see if we can dig out a wok from the attic.

Do you use the same oil for different things (eg, garlic/onions/meat/sweet) or does it taint?

Contary to what you might think following my attitude on Samosas and chips, we do not deep fry enough to know. I'd say that if the oil is not, the food sealed, then tainting should not be much of an issue.

sean
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 05 9:32 pm Post subject:
Onions kill oil, so if you want to make onion rings do that with oil that you've used several times already. Otherwise if the oil is hot enough stuff is sealed so fast it isn't really a problem, I think. Having said that, I've never tried doing doughnuts which might pick up taint from other things. So, Doughnuts new oil. Onions old oil. Everything else don't worry too much.

Bugs

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 10744

Posted: Sat Mar 19, 05 9:34 pm Post subject:
I'm not accusing you of running a mini-McDo from your kitchen, Jema Thanks for the info - I had thought the heat would probably do a good deal towards helping.

Bugs

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 10744

Posted: Sat Mar 19, 05 9:38 pm Post subject:

sean wrote:

never tried doing doughnuts

Me neither, that's something that tempts me in to doing some deep frying, looooove doughnuts, but how much more unnecessarily piggy can you get? Deep fried cake rolled in sugar (says the girl with a weakness for pineapple fritters in syrup

).

Thanks for the other tips; didn't really think onions would be the most "dangerous" thing (somehow I thought garlic and spices would be, although I think they'd be on the "to avoid" list too).

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