The Jozi WAHM's Dummy's Guide to Making Samoosas

Ramadaan, the month in which Muslims abstain from food and drink from sunrise to sunset, is just over a month away. This is a spiritual time of deep reflection, prayer and introspection for Muslims.

Somewhat ironically, many Muslims in South Africa in particular spend the period just before Ramadaan obsessing over the preparation of savoury foods to break their fast with at sunset and stockpile freezer loads of the triangular delicacies (together with a back up warehouse of spring rolls, half moons, pies and other cholesterol rich delights). The theory goes, according to elder housewives, that if most of the food preparation is done in advance, there will be more time for prayer during the auspicious month. I am not sure how relevant this argument is given how laborious samoosa making is and given that the frozen samoosas still has to be fried or baked before being eaten, but nevertheless, it has become tradition (in South Africa and other parts of the world) and Ramadaan just would not be the same without them. 

In honor of this samoosa-filled period, I thought I would share a dummy's guide to making these intricate snacks.

Recipe 1:

Okay, maybe I should not call this a recipe but it works perfectly! The ultimate dummy technique, which I favour, is to find a little old Indian or Cape Malay lady who slaves away every day making samoosas and pay her to do it. 

This site is all about encouraging, celebrating and supporting work from home moms and Johannesburg has hundreds, if not more, of these little old lady WAHM's running little home industries, as do other South African cities. Some will even make the samoosas using your filling if you so wish, and provide you with the frozen goodies, which you will just have to fry.

Given how much time is invested in making samoosas, I would strongly suggest this route if you are short on time.

Recipe 2:

If you really want to make your own samoosas, read on. I am by no means an expert in samoosa making (mine taste decent but I am quite slow at folding them, unlike the more experienced makers who do it at lightning speed).

The instructions here use ready made 'pur' (the samoosa pastry). I made my own once but quite frankly it is not worth the effort. The pur can be bought frozen (it can be found in the frozen food section of most major grocery stores, though nicer homemade ones are available at Indian grocery stores and butcheries).

You will need to defrost your pur for a few hours or overnight. In the meantime, you can prepare your filling of choice and leave it to cool. 

I will share a recipe below which can be used with chicken, steak or mutton mince, but you could also do cheese and corn, spicy potato or virtually any other filling.

The filling:

500 g mince
2 finely chopped onions
Green chillies, finely chopped (to taste, depending how hot you like things)

A squeeze of lemon juice, 

pepper and salt to taste

1 small bunch of chopped coriander (dhania)

1/2 teaspoon of ginger and garlic mix

1/2 teaspoon gharam masala (available from any spice shop)

Method: 

Saute the onions in a bit of oil until golden brown. Braise the mince in the above ingredients until the mince is cooked and dry. Soggy mince is your enemy when folding later on so this is crucial. Season with the chopped coriander. Leave to cool for later use.

While you are filling your samoosas, keep the unused samoosa pur covered with a clean cloth to prevent it from drying out.

The pur will come stacked in a big pile, usually of a hundred sheets. Carefully peel off one layer of pur, being careful not to tear it. (Some people use a double layer of pur for cheese samoosas as they tend to burst while frying). P.S. if you do accidentally tear some of the strips, do not use them for samoosas. Instead you can cut into smaller strips and fry for a snack similar to potato chips. 

Now comes the tricky part. You need to fold the samoosa as shown in the picture below.

The instructions below comes from a 1960's recipe book called the Indian Delights, which remains the authority on South African Indian Cooking (like every Afrikaans household has 'Kook en Geniet', almost every South African Indian household still has a copy of this gem).

Courtesy of Indian Delights by Zuleikha Mayat

 

The next few pictures illustrate the above using paper and tissue "filling". Chinese Origami may seem easier at this point.

 

Top left: First fold | Top right: Second fold | Bottom left: Filling added | Bottom right: Third fold

 

After the first two folds, you would have created a little triangular pocket. You add about a tablespoon of the filling into the pocket you have created. Do not overfill as you will battle to close it. Then you do another fold to close the open flap at the top of your pocket. Well done, you have completed the hard bit! Then you just keep on folding until your strip is used up.

Make sure that your corners are tightly sealed or the oil will seep in while you are frying, leaving you with a greasy samoosa.

Once complete, you seal the samoosa with a dab of paste made out of flour and water (add just enough water to the flour to make a sticky paste).

Samoosas taste best deep-fried until golden brown but if you would like a healthier alternative, you can brush with olive oil and bake, or you could use an airfryer.

Serve with your favourite chutney and slices of lemon and enjoy!

 

Fun Food with The Olive Branch Cookery School

You may have gathered from previous posts that I am always on the look out for fun and interesting ways to present food to encourage Noodle and Squish to eat a healthy and varied diet. 

I was in luck. At the recent Mom Blog Meet, we were privileged to witness a demonstration by Margy Vally on how to make quick, easy and fun kiddies foods. As an added bonus, most of these are simple enough for me to get Noodle involved in helping me to make them.

Margy Vally of The Olive Branch Cookery School

Margy is the executive director and chef of the Olive Branch  Cookery School in Fourways, which hosts a variety of exciting cooking classes in their spacious and well equipped kitchen.Her lessons, which were done together with her son, were humorous and spontaneous. These fun dishes were created using some of Nuk's new range of toddler feeding utensils (they no longer just do baby stuff).

Some of the lovely recipes which she shared with us are set out below. 

She did some fruit skewers on sticks (something we have been doing at home for a while). This is not quite a recipe, it just requires cutting or balling fruit and placing on a skewer.

 

She also did some frozen yoghurt lollies. Her recipe is below, but I often do the same, taking a short cut by substituting the fresh fruit with a pouch of baby food fruit (like the Ella's Kitchen pouches we were gifted with on the day).

Frozen Mango and Yoghurt on a Stick

Ingredients:

300g full cream yoghurt plain
2 medium mangos, peeled, pitted and cut into chunks.

Method:

 

Place into a processor and blitz until smooth. Pour into ice cream moulds, put a lolly stick into each mould and then freeze until required.
N.B. You could also use strawberries or plums.

I grew up with the spicy Indian version of egg bread, beda vari- which is similar to the Western version but more savoury and typically includes salt and various spices such as chillies, cumin and coriander in the egg dip (try it, it is yummy!). As a teenager, I thought it was bizarre when I saw people in restaurants drizzling syrup over their French toast and it is only in my adult life that I discovered that not all egg bread is spicy and salty. The one below certainly is not.

 

Eggy Toast with Syrup and Banana

Ingredients:

2 slices bread white or brown
1 egg, beaten, seasoned with sea salt
20g butter
cinnamon and sugar
Drizzle of Syrup
1 banana, peeled and sliced

Method:

Cut out shapes you desire. Dip into the beaten egg. Melt butter in a frying pan and gently fry
until golden. Place onto dish sprinkle with cinnamon sugar , drizzle with syrup and topped
with sliced banana.

Frozen mango and yoghurt lolly and Eggy Toast with Banana (divided bowl by Nuk)

My children are not too fond of lettuce, but perhaps Margy's recipe below could sway them otherwise.

Chicken and Corn Lettuce Boats

Ingredients:

60g chicken, cooked and diced
30ml mayonnaise
Squeeze of lemon juice
10g frozen sweet corn
½ tomato, diced
½ red pepper, diced
1 spring onion, diced
sea salt and black pepper
6 iceburg lettuce leaves

Method: 

Mix all filling ingredients together and place into the lettuce leaves. Make a little sail for your boat with a napkin and cocktail stick. You could use Tuna or salmon instead of chicken

Chicken and corn lettuce boat

I cannot wait to try the below recipe, which I am sure will be a hit in our household. I did not catch a picture of this one, but a fish shaped cutter is used to shape into a cute little fishy.

Fishy Cakes

 

Ingredients:

200g cooked hake (free from skin and bone)
200g mashed potatoes
1 yolk
1 egg
25g flour
50g fresh white bread crumbs

Method:

Combine the fish, potatoes and egg yolk. Add salt and pepper. Make into fish shapes. Coat with flour, egg and breadcrumbs. Deep fry for 2-3 minutes. Add a frozen pea for an eye. Could also be crab, salmon, or other white fish.

Every child loves crumbed chicken. I do a similar version to the below, but oven baked and with more spices.

Chicken Goujons

200g chicken breast cut into 10cm thick long strips
50g cake flour
2 eggs, beaten
100g fresh breadcrumbs
3 Tbsp mayonnaise
A squeeze of lemon juice to taste
salad leaves to serve

Method:

1. Season the chicken.
2. Coat chicken with flour, then the beaten egg and finally the breadcrumbs.
3. Heat up a frying pan of oil and gently fry the Goujons until golden brown
4. Mix the lemon juice and mayonnaise and seasoning.
5. Serve with the Goujons and a few salad leaves.

The below is great for lunchboxes (I vary the ingredients though and use cherry tomatoes from my garden as Noodle does not really like regular tomatoes).

Rainbow Salad

2 tomatoes, large diced
1 cucumber, large diced
lettuce leaf, shredded
1 yellow pepper, de-seed, cut into large dice
2 carrots, peeled and cut into batons
½ cup full cream yoghurt
2 tablespoons chopped basil
2 tablespoons chopped parsley

Method:

Place yoghurt in a bowl and mix in the basil and parsley
Layer your vegetables one at a time in a see through container. Put a container at the side to dip the vegetables.

The Might Mice below is a clever variation on the usual baked potato recipe. Margy says the secret is to bake rather than microwave the potatoes (which I must confess that I am sometimes guilty of).

Mighty Mice

4 large potatoes, washed and pricked
200ml cooked savoury mince or 200g can tuna drained
25ml butter
10ml milk
salt and pepper
100ml cheddar or mozzarella cheese grated

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C Place the potatoes onto a baking tray. Bake in the oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour.
2. Cool the potatoes, cut in half horizontally.
3. Scoop out flesh and place into a bowl add the butter, milk, salt and pepper and mash well together.
4. Stir in the mince or tuna. Place mixture back into the potato skins and sprinkle with cheese. Bake for a further 15 minutes.
5. Make your mice faces on top of the potato while it cools down enough to be eaten. Use raisins for the eyes, salami for ears, red pepper for mouth, spring onions for whiskers, parsley for hair and anything else you may have.

Mighty Mice Potato Boats

Bon appetit! 

Inside Jozi WAHM's Kitchen- Pizza Night

When I am not working, I try to do as many activities with the kids as possible, some for their educational development and some just for fun. We play in the garden, read story books, ponder life questions (which four year old Noodle has an endless stream of), or do more structured activities.

We also do a lot of tinkering in the kitchen, which kills two birds with one stone as we get food on the table while the children learn and have fun. I am perhaps not the best chef in the world but I do enjoy experimenting in the kitchen and the little ones enjoy getting their hands dirty. I adore kitchen activities for  Noodle especially, as the educational possibilities are endless. Besides creativity and motor skills, there is a lot of opportunity for enhancing mathematical skills (I get her to measure out ingredients, press the right numbers on the microwave or count how many of a certain item we have). For Squish, I try to use cooking time as an opportunity for him to experience new tastes and textures and  learn new words (or just to have fun bang spoons on pots).

Today's culinary activity was making pizza. I made the dough, cooked some spicy chicken and the tomato sauce, chopped up the desired toppings (mushrooms, peppers and spring onions being today’s selection), grated the cheese (Noodle helped with this part) and then let the minions get decorating. I had to stop Squish from eating the raw dough (although he may have gotten a lick or two in) and a lot of grated cheese was consumed before making it onto the pizza.

They also enjoyed playing with the leftover dough and Noodle made little cocktail rolls with the dough after I showed her how to roll it into balls and then brush these with egg. The rolls turned out beautifully and were perfect for lunchboxes. She also made a tiny marble sized one for her dolly (which she of course ate).