Traditional Samosa Puffs

These samosa puffs are not made from puff pastry dough but from the same dough for samosas. They are layered and shaped like puffs and on frying become crunchy like a samosa. This is a popular recipe running in my husband's family - my mom in law's favorite snack and I love it too.

Here's the recipe.

Ingredients for the dough:
White flour - 4 cups
Vegetable oil - 1/4 cup + 2 tbs
Baking powder - 1/2 a tsp
Salt - 1 tspn
Water as needed

Fillings of your choice: Chicken filling, Shrimp mushroom filling, Lamb/beef filling, potato paneer filling or potato peas filling.

Chicken filling

Chicken/Lamb/beef filling: 
Ingredients:
Chicken breast ground: 1lb
Onions- 1 big + 1 very small.
Ginger garlic paste -1tsp
Green Chillies - 2- 4 small ones (you can omit them if you don't want it spicy or just use one. But they give a good flavour to the filling.  Slitting them and removing the seeds also lessens the heat).
Cilantro - 1 cup
Cloves - 2
Dark Cinnamon bark - 1/2 an inch
Green Cardamoms - 2
Dhania(coriander) powder-1 tsp
Turmeric - 1/2 tsp
Vegetable oil - 2 tbs + 2 - 3 cups for deep frying the samosas.

Beef filling

Method:

For the Filling:
1. Make the chicken mince using a mincer using clean and dry chicken breast cubes cut into cubes. Keep the mince aside.
2. Chop the small onion (1/2 cup). Heat 2 tblspns vegetable oil in  a pan Add whole cinnamon bark, cloves and green cardamoms followed by the chopped onion. Fry till golden brown.
3. Add ginger garlic paste, Kitchen king masala, chopped green chillies and turmeric. Mix and cook well.
4. Add sliced onions chopped green chillies (optional) and cilantro, close the lid. Do not stir or mix.
5. Once the meat is cooked, remove and allow it to cool.
6. Remove all the whole spices (cloves, cinnamon & cardamoms) that were added as you don't want to bite into them when you are eating the samosa puffs. They are only added for flavouring the dish.

For the dough:
1. Take 4 cups of flour, add salt and baking powder. Add 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil and process it in a food processor. Add water little by little through the tube and pulse it again and again till it forms into a soft and pliable dough. It should not stick to your hands. Pulse it more and when it starts to spin it is time to remove it. Cover with a moist tea towel and set aside.

Roll the dough on a pastry board to a 1cm thickness

Cut into strips 3" x 3".  Brush with vegetable oil and dust with flour.

Pile the strips one on top of the other - the dry side on top of the greasy side.

Cut into squares. Roll the squares on both the sides.

Add the filling in the center. Brush the two sides of the triangle with flour paste  flour mixed with water to form a spreadable paste or you can use beaten egg white). Close the triangle by pressing the sides a little away from the edge. This helps in making the edges flaky on frying. 

Fry them in moderately hot oil by gently pushing the oil towards the edges in a rowing motion so that the edges open up a bit and look flaky. Turn over and fry till they turn crispy and golden brown. 

Drain them on paper towels. The Samosa puffs are now ready. Serve them hot with chutney or ketchup. Mint chutney, tamarind chutney and chilli garlic sauce are good accompaniments.