I am always looking for ways to turn any ol’ recipe into an easier version of itself, so when I find myself confronted with a recipe that claims, in and of itself, to be easy, I’m all for it…
Well, not quite, I lied. The unfortunate fact is that most recipes online touting themselves as “Easy” do so because they incorporate a number of canned and processed products chalk full of MSG. If I see onion soup mix on an ingredient list, I close the browser tab and move on.
But I came across a recipe for Easy Samosas and the only pre-packaged ingredient was crescent rolls for the dough. As I have previously discussed, my relationship with fresh made bread and pastry is tenuous at best, and so refrigerated Pilsbury dough is one of the few packaged items I’m happy to use.
SARAH’S EASY SAMOSAS
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 (1 lb) package of frozen mixed vegetables (i.e. peas, corn, carrots, green beans, etc.)
5 teaspoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon cilantro chutney or chopped fresh
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 dash red pepper
1 tablespoon water
2 (8 ounce) packages jumbo biscuits
Saute onion and garlic in the oil. Add mixed vegetables, seasonings and water. Simmer until cooked through.
Roll out the biscuits one by one on a floured surface. Fill each with the vegetable filling, leaving enough room around the edge to wet the dough, fold it over and crimp the edges together with the tines of a fork. Bake at 375 for at least 10 minutes; check and bake longer if the dough is not yet golden brown. Serve with your favorite chutneys.
I was really quite pleased with the vegetable filling in this recipe. I did very few alterations (i.e. substituting cilantro chutney for dried, adding more ginger than the paltry 1/4 teaspoon called for), and the filling turned out amazingly tasty, and pretty much exactly as I remember samosas tasting the last time I had them on an Indian buffet.
The dough, of course, wasn’t quite as authentic tasting. I tried both flaky biscuits and buttermilk biscuits. Both were serviceable, but I recommend flaky biscuits if you have the choice. Of course, the original recipe called for crescent sheets, so those could also be substituted, but I opted for biscuits due to the fact that they don’t need to be cut from a sheet and are ready for rolling right out of the container. Other recipes I found called for other types of pre-made pastry sheets, such as phyllo or puff pastry, so certainly those could be used instead. If I’m feeling ambitious someday, I might try making samosas with this filling and the dough from the pita recipe I tried recently.
The original recipe also included a dipping sauce, which I made but found unimpressive. I preferred using the cilantro, tamarind and mango chutneys I had on hand.