Rasananda's Samosas

This recipe is from 'Cooking with the Dead' by Elizabeth Zippern. How can you not love the cover of that book? Or how it contains "Over 65 fabulous, kynd, and caring vegetarian recipes prepared with love"? I love lots, I love lot food, and every time I even hold this book, I am in love.

In the book (page 4) it quotes on fan as saying "When you think of Samosas, you think of Rasananda, and when you think of Rasananda, you think of Samosas." This is his recipe.

Rasananda's Samosas:

Dough:

2 cups white &/or whole-wheat flour

Water ~ 1/2 - 1 cup (or enough to make dough)

1 tsp. salt

1/4 ghee (Note ~ I just use butter)
*Ghee is butter which has had its protein solids cooked off. To make this, cook butter for a few hours over low heat & scrape off the solids which form on the surface after cooking. To further separate the solids from the ghee, strain over a paper towel. Ghee can also be purchased in a Co-op, health food store, or Indian market*

Filling:

2 cups potatoes

1 cup cauliflower

1 cup peas

1/2 cup tomatoes

1 tsp or more to taste of cumin, coriander, turmeric, curry, & chili powder

~Steam or boil the cauliflower and potatoes and then drain. Saute them in oil with cumin, coriander, turmeric, curry, and chili powder. Add the tomatoes and peas. Mix well and continue to saute until thick enough to stuff into the dough as a filling. When finished, take off heat, mix, and let cool.

~ Mix the flour & salt with the ghee and add water to make a dough. Make equal golf-ball sized balls out of the dough and then roll flat with a rolling pin. Stuff the stuffing inside, then close tightly like a turnover for frying. Fry in oil combined with a few more teaspoons of ghee. Flip occasionally and fry until a light brown.
* Note ~ I bake mine. I find this much easier, personally speaking, and like staying away from the extra oil. I line them on a cooking sheet and bake at 325 for approx. 20 - 30 minutes, till they are nice and brown. We then serve them with sour cream on the side. Yummy!

~The filling, in the pot, cooling down~

~The dough, looking deceptively dry in this photo~

~The filling in the dough, ready to be folded over. I am notoriously bad at starting with good, small amounts of dough that yield beautiful Samosas and them making them consecutively bigger until I have Hot Pocket sized Samosas. It's a problem, I need counseling &/or therapy.~


~Hot Pocket sized Samosas, brushed with butter, and ready for the oven~

They might not be 100% true to Rasananda's, I've never actually had his, I bake mine and I used butter instead of Ghee. But they are made with love, and they are yummy. And every time I eat them I feel them healing me. It is wonderful and beautiful. Try them sometime.