Samosas

I made samosas this past week! The idea was birthed out of having an excess of shredded chicken and wanting something different that wasn't a creamy sauce-based dish. I'd done clam chowder and chicken pot pie in the same week. I wanted something different with the rest of my chicken.

I had potatoes and onions at home so I decided to make samosas on a whim. I cooked the filling the night before and made the wrapper the day after. I actually made two batches of wrappers with two different recipes, but this recipe is the one I enjoyed more. Yes, I deep fried them. 

They turned out quite well! I think I could have added more salt to season the filling more. I had slow cooked the chicken by itself and already added salt so I didn't want to add more salt for fear of being overly salty. I tasted the filling to make sure the potatoes were done but didn't think to taste the chicken. Also, I overlooked the fact that the dough wasn't overly salty so the filling needed some extra flavor to compensate.

I guess this is what happens when I cook on a whim. I wouldn't do anything differently because it's the short-notice which results in creativity. It just also comes with a side of imperfection. 

The filling recipe I followed (which I can't find anymore...oops) had said to add water if the mixture got too dry in the pan. I think I took this direction too seriously and added too much water because when I went to fill my samosas, the filling kept leaking and popping the seams on my dough wrapper. I had to get creative on how to stretch portions of the dough over each other to fix the holes.  This is not the batch pictured above. 😄 Halfway through I did drain some of the extra liquid out of the filling mixture so that is why the second batch closed much nicer. 

The deep frying wasn't too bad since I knew the inside filling was already cooked. I just had to watch the color on the outside and remove when done. My dough skills are not great so my wrappers were on the thicker side and resulted in a more doughy outside rather than the traditional flaky. Personally, I don't really care because I knew it was my first time and I'm not going to risk the samosa falling apart during cooking just to roll the dough thinner.  

I still have some extra chicken leftover so I'm trying to find a creative way to use it up. I'll probably be heading to the grocery store after this just to see what ingredients I can find on sale and try something new. I might blog about it next week. Stay tuned!