Cook With Lou: Samosas

Many people feel that there is a trade off between good quality and gluten-free when it comes to tasty food. So for our next Cook With Lou, we have accepted the challenge to create vegetable samosas; one with gluten and the other gluten free.

The cookery session will be on Friday 29^th May at 4pm BST, and during it we will produce a vegetable samosa. We will work with both gluten and gluten free dough recipes and would love to see your results. Use the hashtag #CookWithLou. 

The filling can be whatever you want; follow our suggested filling here, create your own, or use what you have. If you have not got all the recommended spices, you can just use two teaspoons of curry powder instead. 

Before the lesson: 

1. Let us know you want to join and we will send you a link. Numbers are limited so please reserve your place here.
2. Have all ingredients ready.
3. Make sure your jacket potatoes are cooked and have had time to cool. This will help the overall cooling of the filling so we can fill straight away. If this is not done you will just have to wait for it to cool.

Makes:  12

Lesson time: 1 hour 

Ingredients

For the pastry

• 125g warm water
• Either 200g plain bread flour for the gluten pastry, or 200g gluten free bread flour and ½ tsp Xanthan gum for the gluten free pastry, plus extra for kneading and rolling
• 25ml olive or vegetable oil 
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1 tbsp caster sugar or clear honey 
•  Vegetable oil to deep fry, or you can oven bake 

For the filling 

• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 tsp fresh ginger, grated
• ¼ tsp chilli flakes or 1 fresh chilli, sliced (more if you want them hotter)
• ½ tsp mustard seeds
• ½ tsp turmeric
• 2 jacket potatoes or 1 jacket and 1 sweet (pre baked and cold)
• 50g frozen peas (defrosted)

Method

1. If you are oven baking, pre-heat the oven to 190˚C (fan) 180˚C, 350˚F.
2. To make the pastry, mix the flour (plus xanthan gum if doing gluten free) and sugar or honey in a bowl. 
3. Make a well in the centre, then add the oil and the warm water and mix to make a dough. 
4. Knead the dough on a floured surface for 5 minutes, then return to the bowl to rest. Cover in clingfilm and set aside at room temperature for 20 minutes.
5. To make the filling, heat the oil in a frying pan, add the onion and fry until soft. Add garlic, ginger, and spices and cook for a further 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and add the peas. Scoop out the potato and roughly mash with a fork and add to the mixture. Stir to combine. 
6. Divide the pastry into 6 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and roll out into a circle. Cut the circle into two equal pieces with a knife.
7. Fill each one with 1 tablespoon of mixture in the middle then wrap the pastry around the mixture, brush the edge with a little water and form a cone. sealing the bottom edge by pressing the two edges together to seal the cone. Repeat with the remaining pastry.
8. If frying: Heat the oil in a large deep saucepan to 180˚C. The oil should come 1/3rd of the way up the pan. Deep fry the samosas in batches for 8-10 mins until crisp and brown. Take out and drain on kitchen paper.
9. If baking: Brush with oil and bake for 15 minutes or until golden.