Making Suvir’s Puff Pastry Samosas

light crisp samosas from Indian Home Cooking

I’ve been cooking from Suvir Saran’s acclaimed book Indian Home Cooking for years and now from his newest triumph American Masala. The pages are dog-eared and stained with turmeric and garam masala. His recipe for puff pastry samosas with green peas is one of the easiest and most satisfying appetizer/after school snacks I make. My kids devour them and yet they are sophisticated enough to serve to guests.
Suvir calls for a frozen commercial puff pastry instead of a traditional samosa dough. I listened to his advice and I have to say the flaky pastry is the way to go and part of the reason this recipe is so easy!!! If you are inclined to make your own puff pastry by all means do, there is nothing like it on this earth. But preparing laminated dough is a blog for the future.

Here is Suvir’s recipe (I added roasted potatoes to the mix because I had them on hand. In other words feel free to throw in something of your own!) and some pictures I took of assembling the samosas:

2 Tablespoons canola oil

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1 (9-to 10-ounce) package frozen petit peas (although I used regular sized peas and they work just fine!)

2 Tablespoons Green Chutney* (sold as cilantro or mint chutney) or use Suvir’s recipe (page 209, Indian Home Cooking)

1 Tablespoon Tamarind Chutney * store bought or Suvir’s recipe (page 210, Indian Home Cooking)

1 pound package of puff pastry, thawed

flour for rolling puff pastry

1 egg whisked with a pinch of salt for egg wash

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

1. Combine the oil and cumin seeds in a large frying pan over medium heat. Cook, stirring, until the cumin begins to brown, 1 to 2 minutes. Add peas and cook until peas are softened, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in chutneys. Let cool.

2. Lay a sheet of puff pastry on a lightly floured work surface and roll out until about 18×12″ rectangle. Cut the sheet in half and then into 8 equal rectangles. You can cut the rectangles smaller if making bite sized appetizers.

3. Fill the center of the rectangles with a generous tablespoon of the pea filling (more or less depending on the size of the rectangle).

filling samosas

4. brush the edges with the egg wash.

egg wash samosas

5. Fold the rectangle in half to seal the puff pastry around the pea filling. Repeat with all the samosas.

fold dough over filling

6. Press the edges gently with a fork to seal.

seal edge with a fork

7. Place samosas on a baking sheet covered in parchment and brush surface with egg wash.

brush top with egg wash

Bake until crisp and golden brown, 18 to 20 minutes. Serve warm with more chutney. Delicious!!!

bake samosas until golden brown
* the chutneys can be found at Asian markets.

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3 thoughts to “Making Suvir’s Puff Pastry Samosas”

  1. Hi,
    Can you please give me the exact name of the Puff pastry you used to do the samosa? Is it true that if you fry the samosa by using the puff pastry, it suck a lot of oil? Do you need to cook everything before rolling in the puff pastry? Thanks.
    Laurence.

  2. re: “Can you please give me the exact name of the Puff pastry you used to do the samosa? Is it true that if you fry the samosa by using the puff pastry, it suck a lot of oil? Do you need to cook everything before rolling in the puff pastry? Thanks.
    Laurence.”

    Not enough pictures for you mate?

    The instructions, if you read them, are perfect.

    Great page Zoe !!
    Thanks heaps.
    Sincerely,
    Rick

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