South Africa's Samoosas

I tried to make the recipe for samoosas the other day and I failed miserably. That was truly a tough day as I had received some sad news with my research work and so my mind wasn't even on anything. I also thought that if I tried to cook, I would feel better, but instead, my attempt at making samoosa's was a failure.

Anyways, today I have redeemed myself by making this recipe once again. The original recipe for the South African samoosas was adapted from the cookbook entitled The African News Cookbook: African cooking for Western Kitchen. The ingredients I used are:

For the meat filling:

2tsp ginger

2 small garlic cloves

1 lb ground beef

1 small onion thinly sliced

1 tsp coriander, curry powder, and cumin

1 tsp oil

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Combine all the ingredients in a skillet and simmer for 10-15 minutes, stirring frequently until ground beef is well browned. Set aside and begin the vegetable fillings. The ingredients I used are:

1 russet potato

1/2 of baby carrots

1/2 green pea

small onion thinly sliced

1tsp ginger, coriander, garlic

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)

Peel potatoes and boil with carrots until both are soft but firm. Cut into small cubes. In a separate pot, cook the green peas until tender. Meanwhile, heat oil in a skillet, add onions, ginger, garlic, coriander and pepper. Saute for 2-3 minutes and them add the cooked vegetables, gently adding the peas last. Saute thoroughly and then set aside.

For the pastry, I used puff pastry instead of making my own and your can buy them from your local grocery store in the frozen food section.

Making the samoosas (I still need to practice folding some more so as to get the perfect triangle, but in the meantime here are the instructions). Cut a sheet of the pastry piece into four long strips. At the top of the lower corner, put a spoonful of filing. Fold top half down over the filling diagonally, so that the top of the strip is now a triangle. Then fold the triangle over the next section of the strip so that you have a square. Finally fold once again along the diagonal so that you end with a multi-layered triangle. Seal the edges and bake the samoosas for about 20 minutes.