Meat filled Pastries {Kheema Samosa}

 I heard somewhere that you have more chances of being hit by lighting 40 times in a single day than winning a lottery.  I have not personally come across someone who won a lottery jackpot, but from the news and other sources I know that such persons exist – people who have won lotteries, jackpots and had their world change overnight. But I have not heard or read about a person being hit by lighting 40 times in a single day!  My point being here that though I personally have never bought any lottery ticket in my life, I think you can hope that someday you might win based on stories of so many common people winning it over the years.  

I have colleagues who regularly invest small amounts in a weekly lottery.  It is not a fortune they invest, but cumulatively if you account for it over the years, it does add up to a small fortune.  These are all educated people who know about the odds of winning, but still choose to play this game.  Is it an addiction?  Is it hope?  Some of them even joke about not coming in on Monday in case they have hit the jackpot over the weekend.  Of course I have seen those same faces back on Monday, quite enthusiastic about the week ahead and waiting and hoping again for the next lottery draw.  All a vicious cycle if you ask me...but who am I to judge people’s dreams, people’s wishes and people’s luck.   You never know when some day one of them do not turn up for work on Monday and instead are seen on the front pages of the daily newspapers collecting the millions they spent their life hoping for.

“Samosa” is a pastry packet filled with meat or vegetables and then fried and served as an evening snack.  The recipe below is for meat packed samosas, but to be honest I prefer the vegetable ones which I will make and post at a later date.  For the pastry, I went to an Asian shop and was able to find ready-made pastries instead of having to prepare everything from scratch.  However in the past I have prepared the pastry myself and I have to say when I weigh the pros and cons of readymade versus homemade pastry, in terms of taste and texture I would vote for home made but when it comes to time saving, I would definitely opt for the readymade version.

Preparation Time:  40 minutes

Makes 24 samosas

Ingredients:

For the Pastry: 225 grams flour

½ teaspoon salt

4 tablespoon oil

4 tablespoon water

For the Filling:  ½ kg lean mince

4 tablespoon curd

½ teaspoon cumin powder

½ teaspoon coriander powder

½ teaspoon turmeric powder

½ teaspoon Salt

4 tablespoon corn oil

5 onions, diced

400 ml water

1 tablespoon garlic paste

1 tablespoon ginger paste

3 green chilies, chopped

2 tablespoon lemon juice

Oil for deep fat frying

Method:

1. Sift the flour and salt into a bowl.  
2. Work in the oil with your fingers.  
3. Pour in water to form a stiff dough.  
4. Knead on a floured surface until smooth.  
5. Cover and chill for 30 minutes.

To make the filling:

1. Place the mince in a bowl.  
2. Stir in the curd, turmeric, cumin, coriander powders and salt.  Set aside.  
3. Heat oil in a pan and fry the onions till golden brown.  
4. Add the mince mixture.  Brown the meat.  
5. Pour in water and add ginger, garlic and green chillies.  
6. Cook till all the liquids evaporate and the meat is tender. 
7. Stir in the lemon juice.  Cool.  
8. Roll out the pastry to 4” diameter circles.  Cut each round into half.  
9. Moisten the straight edge with water and form pastry in a cone. 
10. Fill the pocket with a teaspoon of cooked filling.  
11. Seal the open edges with water.  
12. Fry samosas in hot oil over low flame until golden and crisp.  Drain and serve.