Hairy Bikers Samosa Recipe

Potato, peas and black mustard seeds go into this Hairy Bikers samosa recipe, wrapped in a pastry you make from flour, oil and water. And Great Curries gets 9 from that, at roughly 235 calories each and an hour and a half from bowl to plate.

Packet samosas and home-made are “like chalk and cheese”, the headnote says, and the pastry is where they part. So instead of a semicircle folded into a cone, theirs is a long rectangle wrapped flag-style, which is what gives the pastry its layers.

The oil is held at 160C, lower than for bhajis, and each samosa gets six minutes a side. Because the book is blunt that they must fry slowly, so the pastry cooks right through and the filling is hot to the middle.

Hairy Bikers Samosa Recipe

Author: Alex Saidani Cooking Method:Frying Cuisine:British Indian Courses:Starter

Difficulty:BeginnerPrep time: 40 minutesCook time: 50 minutesRest time: minutesTotal time:1 hour 30 minutesServings:9 servingsCalories:235 kcal Best Season:Summer

Description

A crushed potato and pea filling, warmed with garam masala, turmeric and black mustard seeds, goes completely cold before it meets the dough. Then nine rectangles of oil-and-flour pastry are rolled thin against a cardboard template and folded into triangles around a teaspoon of filling. And three at a time go into 4cm of oil, twelve minutes in all, until golden and lightly puffed.

Ingredients

For the filling

• 1 medium potato, about 300g
• 1 tbsp sunflower oil
• ½ medium onion, finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
• 1½ tsp garam masala
• ½ tsp ground turmeric
• ½ tsp black mustard seeds
• 50g frozen peas, thawed
• ½ tsp flaked sea salt
• Freshly ground black pepper

For the pastry

• 250g plain flour, plus extra for rolling
• 1 tsp fine sea salt
• 4 tbsp sunflower oil
• 100ml warm water (50ml just-boiled, 50ml cold)

To fry

• About 1.2 litres sunflower oil

Instructions

1. Cook the potato: peel 1 medium potato, about 300g, and cut it into 1cm cubes. Then drop them into a pan of boiling water for 4½ to 5 minutes until completely tender, and drain in a colander.
2. Start the filling: heat 1 tbsp sunflower oil in a small non-stick frying pan. Then cook ½ a finely chopped onion and 1 chopped garlic clove over a low heat for 3 minutes, soft but not coloured. Then sprinkle over 1½ tsp garam masala, ½ tsp turmeric and ½ tsp black mustard seeds and fry for a minute more.
3. Finish the filling: tip in the potato and 50g thawed peas and cook for 1 minute. Then press with the back of a spoon to crush the potato a little, and season with ½ tsp flaked salt and plenty of pepper. Then leave it to go completely cold.
4. Make the pastry: mix 250g plain flour with 1 tsp fine salt. Then rub in 4 tbsp sunflower oil with your fingertips until it looks like breadcrumbs. Then stir in 100ml warm water, half just-boiled and half cold, until it forms a ball, knead for a minute and divide into 9.
5. Roll and cut: roll one portion out into a rectangle a touch bigger than 28 x 8cm, and keep going until extremely thin. Then cut round a 28 x 8cm template, a foil-covered strip of cereal box, and bin the trimmings.
6. Fold and fill: with a short side facing you, fold the right corner across so its point sits in the middle, 10cm up. Then fold the left corner over it to make a cone, and spoon in a little filling. Then fold the parcel up the strip twice more, dab water on the tail, press to seal, and make two more the same way.
7. Fry: pour sunflower oil 4cm deep into a large saucepan and heat it to 160C on a thermometer. Then lower in 3 samosas one at a time and fry for 6 minutes on each side, while you fold the next 3. And they are done when golden, crisp and lightly puffed.
8. Drain and repeat: lift them out with a slotted spoon onto kitchen paper. Then let the oil settle back to 160C before the next batch, until all 9 are done. Then serve them warm with minted yoghurt or a chutney.

FAQs

What fillings can you put in samosas?

Plenty, and only one is the classic potato and pea. Because Perfect Pies adds sweet potato for 28 smaller ones, while Mums Know Best fills theirs with tandoori chicken and curry leaves. And that same book lists haggis, black pudding and prawn with spinach as fillings to try, which the next answer explains.

What are the Mums Know Best tortilla samosas?

Gameelah Ghafoor from Dundee made them for the show, and the tortilla trick is her Yemeni dad’s. Because instead of pastry she wraps spiced beef mince and potato in 16 tortillas, sealed with beaten egg. And they fry at 160C, or 180C with a hot filling, while the haggis version is only listed as a filling to try.

Do I have to make the samosa pastry?

No, and the book says so itself, since ready-made samosa wrappers from an Asian grocer are given as the alternative. But their pastries differ, because Great Curries binds flour with oil and water, while Mums Know Best and BBC add an egg yolk. And the Hairy Dieters skip pastry for filo brushed with oil and baked at 200C, which brings each one down to 127 calories.

What are common mistakes when making samosas?

Thick pastry is the first, because the book wants the rectangles rolled so thin you can barely make them big enough for the template. Then overfilling is the second, since Mums Know Best says three-quarters full and no more, or the filling forces its way out. And crowding the pan is the third, which is why they fry three at a time, as their spring onion pakoras fry four.

Can I make samosas ahead, and what do they go with?

Yes, and better than most fried things, since the book has you cool them, cover them and keep them two days in the fridge. Then ten minutes at 200C brings them back crisp, which is more than you can say for their onion bhajis from the same book. And they sit before their keema curry with minted yoghurt, or beside their Thai fish cakes if you want two starters.

And their prawn spring rolls from Perfect Pies fry the same way for a party, though those are rolled and eaten the same day.