Vegetable Samosas with Chickpea Curry

Day 148

We used to order Vegetable Samosas with Chickpea Curry from the City Square Restaurant, before it was sold and became Chatters, back when it featured Indian cuisine. I worked right around the corner at Lightning Demand Press at the time and would order it for lunch or order two of them and bring them home for supper. We loved, loved, loved those samosas so much! When we have a chance to get vegetable samosas from Boyce Farmer's Market in Fredericton we always enjoy those ones too, and they are very similar, only served cold and without the curry (sauce).

Vegetable Samosas with Chickpea Curry

Vegetable Samosas

Original recipe here
When Laura came up with this brilliant, yet adventurous idea, I was all like, "What do we need?" and headed directly to Sobeys armed with a surprisingly short list, since we already had a lot of the ingredients.

She started off with the dough, since it needed time to rise and rest and whatever things dough does.

Dough Ingredients

2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
Cold water as needed, about 10 tbsp

Directions

Mix flour and salt and cut in cold butter. Once it's cut in, massage the pieces into the flour until it resembles cornmeal.

Add water, a tablespoon at a time, and mix until a ball of dough forms. Shape into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for one hour.

Filling Ingredients

3 potatoes
1 carrot
1/4 cup butter
1 cup minced onion
1 tbsp minced fresh ginger
1 jalapeno, finely minced
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp cumin seeds
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 cup frozen green peas, thawed
1/4 cup chopped cilantro leaves

Samosa filling ingredients

Directions

Sauté the onions. Peel and chop the potatoes, carrots and ginger. Chop the cilantro leaves and jalapenos. Measure the peas and spices. Add everything but the cilantro to the sautéed onions and cook until carrots and potatoes are tender. Let cool and add the cilantro before wrapping.

Wrapping Samosas

Laura divided the dough into 11 pieces and rolled them into discs.

Balls of dough

Starting with a flat disc, you fold 1/4 the disc toward the center and do the same on the other side so you have a wedge, which you then open like a cone. Use water when folding to bind the dough where the folded sides overlap.

Folding the dough into a wedge

Fill the cone with the samosa filling and then fold the top edge over, sealing it with water.

Filling the dough

Wrapped samosa

We skipped the dipping sauce from the samosa recipe and made the chickpea curry instead.

Cooking Samosas

I did some of the frying. Other than the shopping and taking the photos, this was my only contribution to the process. I used 2 cups peanut oil in a 10" stainless steel pan and fried each samosa about 4 or 5 minutes slightly below medium heat, then carefully turned them over and fried the other side another 4 or 5 minutes.

Frying samosas, sealed side down first

11 samosas

Chickpea Curry

Original recipe here
This sauce is very similar to the one the City Square Restaurant used to serve, and Laura definitely does it justice.

Ingredients

1 tbsp butter
2 cans chickpeas
2 onions, chopped
1 small piece of ginger
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 can tomatoes
1 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp garam masala
1/2 cup plain yoghurt

Curry ingredients

Directions

Sauté the onions in the butter first, until soft, then add the spices, ginger and garlic and finally the chickpeas and tomatoes. Turn down and simmer about 10 minutes.

Chickpea curry cooking

After the curry has cooked and cooled slightly, stir in the cilantro and the yoghurt. We also served it with a dollop of plain yoghurt on the side and a sprinkle of chopped cilantro as a garnish.

The Best Meal Yet

Vegetable samosas with chickpea curry

Reviews/Comments

All I can say is "Wow, wow, wow"...definitely a 10 - and raised the bar so all previous recipes that had been rated a 10 are now 9's, and all 9's are 8's and so on. Or, we can just call this one 11. My blog, my rules. haha

I hope Laura found it worth the effort and the enormous amount of time it took because she needs to make them again. And again.

Laura loved it too, and rates it a 10 "of course". We both ate too much. Soooo full. Yum.

And Carrie? This is fancy. lol