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This week for lunch: Samosa's

Posted at 8:44 AM on March 5, 2008 by Sareen Dunleavy Keenan (2 Comments)

Continuing to try to make meals that are exciting, but local, this week we turned to India.

Samosa's filled with local potatoes and local frozen peas and cauliflower. This meal was very easy but we ran into a problem when we tried to bake instead of fry them. I think the issue was Brendan wanted the real deal, and was against the baking plan from the start. But here are the basics of the recipe for those interested.

Dough:
4 cups flour
2tbs oil
1 cup warm water
1 tsp salt
-Food process until just comes together, refrigerate for 20 min.

Filling:
1lb potatoes
1/2 lb cauliflower
2/3 cup peas
1 onion
2tbs ginger
2 cloves garlic
2tbs lemon juice
2tbs curry powder

from there it is bringing the filling together. I steamed the veggies first, and then threw them in the pan with the onion, ginger and garlic and seasoned. We had 32 samosa's from this dough, rolled thin, folded in half and sealed with just water around the edges.

I tried to bake them at 400 with an egg wash. I think that they would have eventually turned out with some flipping and some time, but Brendan complained that they were too doughy. If you are impatient or can handle some fried food in your diet, the deep fry or shallow fry method will work fine for you.

Comments (2)

Hi Sareen and all ~~

Living in central British Columbia, Canada, we face many of the same challenges you describe. Fresh vegetables can't get any more local than those you grow right in your sink --- don't overlook sprouts! It goes way beyond alfalfa. Beans, sunflower seeds, clover, radish, broccoli, peas, lentils, mustard, arugula...the range of flavours and textures is amazing.

Purists might object that the seeds themselves are difficult to source locally. I buy a variety of seed mixes from Mumm's in Saskatechewan. If someone could tell me an easy way to clean the seeds of plants I grow myself, I'd love to incorporate them.

We're still (in March!) eating tomatillos from last year's huge greenhouse crop. The under-ripe ones just lay in shallow layers in a sunny window in an unheated room. Tomato vines, hung by the roots, continued to mature fruit into January, supplementing our long-keeper tomatoes wrapped in the pantry. We ate the last of our spaghetti and patty-pan squash last night, still have garlic, potatoes and onions in storage. Salting (sauerkraut,kimchee) canning and drying add more variety.

I won't claim that we eat totally local, but our shopping cart at the supermarket is increasingly sparsely populated.

If you think all this is time-consuming, you're right. I choose to work part-time, partly so I have time to make my own bread, yogurt, soy milk, nut butters etc., and shop at farmers' markets, organic farms and co-ordinate a food-buying co-op.

Congratulations to you, Sareen, and all the locavores in this inspiring project.
Jenny

Posted by Jenny Noble | March 5, 2008 2:02 PM

I am trying to learn more that I can do with gardening indoors. We have this complication of old house/old windows and we still go with the whole plastic over the windows routine. With this, we have shades (that are semi-transparent) down all winter. This would not be so conducive to the tomato plant.

I would love to know more about some long keeper tomatoes. I am going to look up information on those.

Canning and the rest does take time, but one day of inconvenience usually yields us about 30 jars of goodness. I would much rather run down to the pantry then to deal with getting everyone in the car or on the bike to go to the grocery.

Thanks for your thoughts. -sdk

Posted by Sareen | March 7, 2008 3:12 PM