Samosas - Four Variations

I haven't too much to say about samosas in general.  They're really just savory turnovers and are made by folding some kind of tasty filling into pie crust and baking it until finished.  Nearly inexhaustible variations present themselves; perhaps the easiest thing to do is start with a base ingredient.

Four Samosa Variations:
 
Maybe you're going for something starchy.  Choose potato with onions, carrots, leeks, and combine with some type of green (chard, kale, spinach).  Caramelize the onions with garlic then add the potatoes and carrots til brown.  Lightly braise with stock to generate a type of sauce in the pan.  Add in the greens and flavor with rosemary, thyme, red pepper flake, and butter.  Mix it all together and taste for salt and pepper before forming the samosa.

Or choose rice or some other grain with any type of cooked bean (black, red, white, garbanzo, lima, fava) or lentil and caramelized onion.  Cook the rice using stock instead of water; caramelize the onion, de-glaze with stock, add the beans and flavor with oregano and thyme before mixing it all together and forming the samosa.  Remember to taste for salt.

Try either of these using curry spices and flavorings instead of the Franco/Italiano variations.  For the first gently fry cumin and mustard seeds in the pan until the mustard seeds pop (use a lid) and then add the onions with maybe garlic and ginger and slowly brown (30-40 minutes).  Add in the potatoes and carrots and lightly brown.  Then add in some curry powder and cook briefly before adding the braising liquid.  Lightly braise before adding the greens.  Top the samosa with a yogurt sauce or raita.

For the rice dish do about the same thing: fry up cumin and mustard seeds, add the onion with garlic and ginger, add a little curry powder and de-glaze the pan with stock.  Cook the rice with a bit of turmeric to make it a very bright yellow.  Mix it all together before forming the samosa.

Any of these should bake in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes.

Rolling out the Pie Crust:

For samosas, rolling out the dough is easy.  Take a full recipe of pie dough and break it into about 12 (?) pieces.  Press each of these out using your fingers onto a liberally floured surface until almost flat.  Liberally dust the top of the dough with flour before going over it a few times with a rolling pin.  You should have a disk that is about six inches in diameter and about 1/8" in thickness, give or take.  As long as you keep things well floured you should be fine; the rounds are small enough that handling it not going to rip holes all over the place and make a huge mess.

For pies everything is completely different.  The round ends up so big and the dough is so delicate that trying to handle to dough by itself can often lead to disaster.  What I've found through trial and error is that wax paper/parchment can work wonders.

For a top and bottom pie crust take the full pie dough recipe and break it in half.  Take one of the halves and throw it onto a piece of wax paper that's about 10" x 10"; press the dough flat using your fingers and the palm of your hand until you have a disk that is about 6 inches in diameter and about one half to three-quarters of an inch in thickness.  Then take another equally sized piece of paper and place this on top of the disk.  Use the rolling pin to methodically work the dough out from the center of the round toward the edge of the paper.  We're shooting for a disk that is about 12 inches in diameter and about 1/8" thick.  You may find that flipping the whole thing over and rolling from the other side about half way through is helpful.

Now remove one piece of paper, drape the dough over your pie pan with the remaining paper facing away from the pan, and gently remove the second piece of paper.  You may experience ripping of the dough, it's ok, it could be much much worse.

Do the same thing for the top of the pie once the filling is in and you're good to go.