By David Tanis
- Total Time
- About 1½ hours
- Rating
- 4(226)
- Notes
- Read community notes
Samosas are popular snacks in Pakistan, India and elsewhere. The delicious fried parcels are often sold on the street, but the best ones are made at home. You can make the flavorful potato filling in advance if you wish. The highly seasoned potatoes can be served on their own as a side dish. Ajwain seed, a spice with a thyme-like flavor, is available from south Asian groceries or online spice merchants.
Featured in: Potato Samosas, Long a Street Food, Find a Place in Your Kitchen
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Ingredients
Yield:About 20 small samosas
- 2cups all-purpose flour
- ½teaspoon salt
- 1teaspoon ajwain or cumin seeds
- ¼cup vegetable oil
- ½cup cold water
- 1½pounds russet potatoes, peeled, in 1-inch cubes
- 3medium carrots, chopped, optional
- 3tablespoons vegetable oil, plus about 3 cups more for frying
- 1chopped onion, about 1 cup
- Salt and pepper
- 1teaspoon cumin seeds
- 1teaspoon black mustard seeds
- 1teaspoon grated garlic
- 1teaspoon grated ginger
- 2Serrano chiles, finely chopped
- 1teaspoon turmeric
- ½teaspoon garam masala
- 3tablespoons lemon juice
- 1cup chopped cilantro, tender stems and leaves
For the Dough
For the Filling
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (20 servings)
197 calories; 13 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 9 grams monounsaturated fat; 2 grams polyunsaturated fat; 18 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram dietary fiber; 1 gram sugars; 2 grams protein; 199 milligrams sodium
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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Preparation
Step
1
Make the dough: Put flour, salt and ajwain seeds in a medium bowl. Drizzle in oil and work into flour with fingers until mixture looks mealy. Add water gradually, stirring until a soft dough has formed. If dough seems too dry, add a tablespoon of water; if it seems wet, add a tablespoon of flour. Knead for 1 minute and form into a ball. Wrap and set aside for 30 minutes.
Step
2
Make the filling: Simmer the potatoes and carrots in well-salted water until tender, about 10 to 15 minutes. Drain and set aside to cool. Put 2 tablespoons oil in a deep, heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add onions, season with salt and pepper and cook, stirring, until softened and beginning to brown, 8 to 10 minutes.
Step
3
Put 1 tablespoon oil in a very small skillet over medium heat. When hot, add cumin and mustard seeds. When seeds are fragrant and beginning to pop, stir in garlic, ginger, chiles, turmeric and garam masala. Let sizzle for a minute, then add skillet contents to onions.
Add reserved potatoes and carrots and stir well to coat. Check seasoning and adjust salt. Remove mixture to a bowl and let cool to room temperature. When cool, add lemon juice and chopped cilantro. Mix well, smashing the potatoes a bit in the process.
Step
5
Make the samosas. Portion the dough into 20 pieces, each weighing 1½ ounces. Form each piece into a ball and place on a large plate. Cover with a damp napkin.
Step
6
Roll each dough ball into a thin disk about 6 inches in diameter, as if rolling out pie dough. Cut each disk exactly in half, leaving 2 pieces with a straight side and a round side.
Step
7
Form each half-disk into a cone by folding it over and pinching the straight sides together. Put 3 tablespoons filling in the opening on the round side, then pinch closed to make a stuffed triangle. Form the rest of dough balls into samosas.
Step
8
Heat about 2 inches of oil in the bottom of wok over medium-high heat. Adjust heat to maintain the oil at 350 degrees. Slip samosas 4 at a time into the hot oil and let fry on one side until golden, a minute or so, then flip and cook other side. Lift from oil and drain on paper towels. Serve samosas hot or at room temperature, accompanied by your favorite chutney.
Ratings
4
out of 5
226
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Cooking Notes
Santosh
Two key missing ingredients are fennel seeds and sweet peas. Add 1 tsp of fennel, preferrably pulsed lighly in a coffee grinder to the potato mixture. Additionally since the potatoes are 1.5 lbs, I would up the amount of garam masala to 1 tbsp (which can be substitued with all spice). The mustard seeds seem a bit strange for these recipe. For authentic flavor, add. 1 tbsp mustard oil to the 1 tbsp of vegetable oil prior to tempering.
Kamini
There is no need for two separate steps and pans to cook the onions, and then the spices. Heat some oil in a pan, add the mustard and cumin seeds; after they sizzle and pop, add in the ginger, garlic, etc; after about 30 seconds add the onions into the same pan and let them fry along with everything else in there.
Ajwain (Carom) seeds would be a nice addition, to either or both the stuffing and the dough. If adding to the stuffing, add it with the cumin seeds.
Santosh
Ajwain == Carrom Seeds. If you don't find these closeby, substitute with celery seeds
BG
You can bake these if you don't want to fry them.
Brad
Three cheers for including ajwain---the single most underappreciated spice I know.
ST
Made these today. Rather than frying, I baked them at 400F for 30 minutes. They were rather pale but regardless were delicious. Like most people I substituted peas for the carrots and made 12 larger samosas instead of 20 small. They were so good, I found myself eating half for lunch. Scary
Passion for Peaches
Interesting. I have had potato samosas in many interpretations, but never once with carrot in them. And they almost always include peas. (And amchur, but the lemon juice here partially makes up for that.) Ideally you'll get a sweet-sour effect when the slightly tart samosa is dipped into sweet tamarind chutney, and/or chili-infused cilantro chutney. But I have also had potato samosas that were spiced almost like an apple pie, with excellent results. Samosas are the perfect comfort food.
Santosh
If you use a chickpea flour, it becomes an entirely different dish (called pakodas or vadas of vada-pav). Incidentally for the latter mustard seeds are used
rosemary mcgettrick
How about using this as baked potato stuffing? Maybe use filling from 2 baked added to less of the cubed potato.
Teddy29
For those who are visual learners, Chef Harpal shows how to make the somosa cone at 8:07: https://youtu.be/iIVJN0Yz1Y0
A. Cleary
That sounds heavenly! And as much as I love samosas, your idea sounds much easier & more likely to happen on a week night. Let's hear it for Irish Samosas!
MT
I made these and found the same thing that I see wbjake already calculated: The dough was exactly enough for 10 balls of 1.5 oz each. They nicely rolled out to ~6-in circles. I used one half-circle per samosa, and the filling was about the right amount to fill the 20.
I played fast and loose with the spices: Not having black mustard seeds, I used ground yellow mustard. Not having turmeric, I used curry powder. Despite that (and needing some work on my samosa-shaping skills) these were fabulous.
Karen M
The dough disks are each cut in half. The two halves are stacked together and the straight edges are pinched to form a cone. The potato mixture is stuffed into the cone and the opening is pinched shut. See steps 6 and 7 in the instructions. This will give you 20 samosas.
Correction
Recipe makes 10 (not 20) 1.5 oz balls which, when rolled out and cut in half, make 20 small samosas.
GC
Hi! Made these this morning, they were a big hit. Not too complicated and the dough was nice and flaky, filling nicely spiced. I fried them in mix of coconut oil and vegetable oil. Also, used parsley since no cilantro around today. Also had no lemon so omitted but used all other spices, was delicious. Served with mango chutney and a cucumber and rucola salad. One question - could you use chickpea flour for the dough? Anyway, yum! Thanks for a good recipe!
Deb
I had doubled the recipe for the filling, and then had a good bit left over. I simmered it in some chicken broth and it made a fabulous soup.
Correction
Recipe makes 10 (not 20) 1.5 oz balls which, when rolled out and cut in half, make 20 small samosas.
Samantha
With the first half of the dough, I cut 10 pieces and cut each one in half (ending up with 20 itty bitty samosas which were a bit hard to fill). For the second half of the dough, I cut 4 pieces and cut each one in half for 8 "normal" sized samosas. I think the recipe would be improved with using a bit of water or corn starch slurry to seal the samosas. I appreciated that the oil in the dough helped them not stick to the table or the rolling pin!
tiger squeakily, jr.
more samosa recipes, please.
Carol
I’ve made this a bunch during different time of the year and I just need to let people know the dough recipe is too dry. Every time. Go to what they say and have some water ready to adjust it. It’s just too dry to work with properly.
Erik
These are delicious. I followed the recipe and ended up with way too much filling though.
ST
Made these today. Rather than frying, I baked them at 400F for 30 minutes. They were rather pale but regardless were delicious. Like most people I substituted peas for the carrots and made 12 larger samosas instead of 20 small. They were so good, I found myself eating half for lunch. Scary
leah
This was great. The dough was fool proof and my 3 year old could even help. BUT I had a hard time getting 3 tbl of filling in them. Either way they turned out great. I used peas instead of carrots, though, and I added some diced preserved lemon.
Jen
I had quite a bit more filling than would fit in the pockets (and as others have noted, the recipe should say 10 balls of dough rolled and cut in half to make 20 samosas), so next time I think I'd make 1.5 times as much dough. Otherwise, this was surprisingly easy and really tasty!
Susan
I used frozen peas and left out the carrots. Instead of cumin seeds, mustard seeds and Serrano chiles (which I don't have), I added the spices that I had in the pantry - garam masala, cardamon, cumin, and paprika. The samosas came out delicious!
Rgrieder
My kids are so happy with a warmed tortilla stuffed (folded over like a quesadilla) with this potato filling. I add chopped spinach, chickpeas, or sweet peas, just to have them eat more vegetables. An easy afterschool snack!
andythebeagle
Making these is like falling out of a tree, it's that easy.Watch this YouTube video. Several times if you are a slow learner.How to make Samosahttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPmPHXan1bA
ERH
Full disclosure: I only made the filling (I was going to an "Everything You Can Put in a Dumpling" party) and not the dough. That said: Wow! This was so wonderfully delicious. I swapped frozen peas for the carrots, jalapeno for Serrano, Madras curry for garam masala, and threw some chickpeas in there because YOLO. Fried the onions in 2 tbsp of coconut oil, with an additional tbsp thrown in later with the potatoes. VERY flavorful and satisfying, and the coconut oil infused everything beautifully.
andythebeagle
You did not follow the recipe. It needs Garam Masala, not curry.
ChristineP
I am planning to make these for a dinner, but just learned one of my guests has gluten intolerance. Any idea how to make this gluten-free? I guess substitute a different kind of flour, but would I use the same amount as in the recipe?
Teddy29
For those who are visual learners, Chef Harpal shows how to make the somosa cone at 8:07: https://youtu.be/iIVJN0Yz1Y0
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