Punjabi Samosa recipe – Learn how to make best crunchy samosa with yummy flaky surface and delicious filling of green peas and boiled potato.
This samosa has put India on the world map. Worldwide, everyone knows what is a samosa. This samosa has been part of numerous love stories and has touched lives of millions of people in the world. Indian rains and conversations can never complete without spicy hot samosa and a cu of tea.
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What is Samosa
Samosa a deep fried or baked (healthier version) pastry. This pastry is normally all purpose flour. Normally samosa has a savoury stuffing. The stuffing can be green peas, mashed boiled potatoes, onions, lentils or in non-vegetarian version can have chicken, lamb, or beef. A samosa is identified by its unique 3D triangular shape. Samosa may have different shapes too, however 3D triangular shape remains the synonym of samosa.
Samosa is now a global name. The crispy skin with soft stuffing, when served hot can salivate anyone. I would not remember any function or event in India can be complete with out reference to samosa. I remember my college days in Dehradun, when I will go out of my hostel to eat a samosa from near by road side vendor. Oh the joys of hot samosa with a nice spicy chutney, I am already salivating thinking of the taste.
Now a days you can get frozen samosas in superstores, simply de-freeze these samosas and then deep fry or air fry. However, if you really want to explore the art of true samosa making and the joy the fresh home made samosa offers, you should check this recipe in detail.
Origin of Samosa
Samosa originated in middle east and probably in central asia. It then traveled to Indian sub-continent and across the world. Samosa existed even by 13th century and noted scholars like Amir Khusrao and Ibn Battuta have mentioned samosa in their poetry.
Samosa is so popular that there have been songs with reference of samosa in bollywood movies, “jab tak raheega samose main aalo”, meaning as long as potato is in samosa, something will also be there. Aloo stuffed samosa hence is the most common and most popular samosa.
Stuffing of samosa: You can have numerous stuffings for samosa. However, nothing can beat the taste of original Punjabi style of potato samosa. Some of the common stuffing of samosa are potatoes and peas, chicken, lamb, keema, lentils etc
Punjabi Samosa is nice plum big samosa, these are proper 3D shape triangular in shape. However, you will also find some samosa, which are triangular in shape, but more of 2D shape. These samosas are slim in shape and widely referred as patti samosa. Patti = Leaf, and because these are mostly flat in shape, hence the name.
Method of making Punjabi Samosa
- Take all purpose flour / maida in a mixing bowl and add oil, salt, carom seeds to it and knead it to a stiff dough with the help of Luke warm water. Cover the dough and let it rest for a while till we prepare stuffing.
- Roughly mash the boiled potato. In a pan heat one tablespoon oil, add cumin seeds and once they crackle add green peas and chillies. Now add all the spices and boiled potato.
- Mix them well and now add chopped cashews and raisins. Again mix it and switch off the flame and transfer the mixture into a bowl once cooled.
- Now take the dough, again knead it for few minutes and divide it into 6 equal sized balls. Take one ball at a time and roll it into a oblong shape of around 8-9 cm in diameter.
- Cut this from middle and take one half circle. Apply little water on the edge and fold it to centre to make a conical shape.
- Now put 1.5 tablespoon of mixture into it and press and seal the edges.
- Once they are all ready, heat sufficient oil in a pan and deep fry all of them allowing 3-4 at a time till they nice crisp and golden brown in colour.
I have been a hardcore samosa lover. I remember the good old days when I will ask my dad to get samosa on his way back from work to home. Access to samosa became less often after I moved to U.K. This compelled me to start making samosa myself at home. I have now been making punjabi samosa at home for last 10 years. I am hoping my punjabi samosa recipe will help you get the best samosa.
This Punjabi samosa recipe
- Is vegan
- Gives best samosa
- Is no-garlic and no-onion recipe
- Includes video which shows how to give samosa the authentic 3D shape.
Tips for flaky and crunchy samosa
- Mix oil in the dough. Adding oil in the dough reduces the changes of getting blisters / bubbles on samosa surface. Too little oil in dough will make the samosa crust hard. Check recipe for proportion of oil.
- Samosa dough should be kneaded mainly with oil and little water (use luke warm water only). More the water, higher the chance of getting bubbles on the surface while frying. Dough needs to be tight and not like one used for roti.
- Rolling of the dough. Dough should be rolled nor too thick or thin.
- Frying of the samosa. Samosa should be fried on low heat. High heat will cook the samosa on crust only.
Healthy version of samosa
You can bake or air fry the samosa, to get the less guilty version of samosa.
Other samosa versions
You can make lamb, beef or chicken stuffed samosa. These samosas are common in UK. You may also try this little sweeter version of samosa – apple pie samosa.
Serving suggestion
Serve samosa hot with green chutney or tamarind chutney or ketchup and tea.
Other versions of Samosa
You can make gluten-free samosa, by using multi-grain flour for the samosa wrapper. Rest of the recipe will remain the same.
You can also buy ready to use pastry sheet for samosa wrappers to save time and effort on getting the samosa dough ready.
Continue reading for step by step recipe of making punjabi samosa from scratch.