GARAM MASALA SAMOSAS

The nice girl at Healthyway, our local organic grocery store, always asks me,

"So what's for dinner tonight?" She always catches me on those days when I'm trying to up my game. "Tonight I'm making samosas with garam masala. I made them a few weeks back for my in-laws when they came back from their 3 month trip to the states. It was so good I just had to make it again." She just gives me a blank stare.....

"You really go all out!" she finally says.

"Haha well tonight yes, but usually in between I make fried yams and salad, simple!"

I had no idea what garam masala was a month ago. So you are catching me at a learning point. I was told by a good friend that she just LOVES garam malasa in all of her rice dishes so I just had to try it. Garam Masala is an east indian spice blend. It contains black and white peppercorns, cloves, cinnamon, cumin seeds and cardamom seeds, ground into a powder. I bought it in the bulk section. It was perfect for this dish.

This was the easiest dough recipe I have worked with yet. Using the saran wrap on the conter and between the dough and rolling pin is such a life saver. You must try this!!

Mmm I can't wait to eat these later!! I hope you try these at home. I think in total it was an hours worth of it. But most fancier dinners are.

Cover in Saran wrap if you are going to fry them all together at a later point

Garam Masala Samosas

Makes 9-10

Ingredients

Filling

• 1 large yam or sweet potato, cubed
• 1 tsp coconut oil
• 5 tsp filtered water
• 1/2 cup cooked brown rice
• 1 tsp. mustard
• 1/2 tsp. garam masala
• 1 tsp. curry powder
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 cup peas

Dough

Dry

• 1 cup brown rice flour
• 1/2 cup sorghum or oat flour
• 3/4 cup potato starch
• 1/2 tsp. xanthum gum
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder (aluminium free)
• 1/4 tsp. celtic sea salt

Wet

• 1 tsp. coconut oil, melted
• 1 cup unsweeetened almond or rice milk

• 2 tsp. brown rice flour, for sticky dough
• 6 tsp. coconut oil, for frying

Garnish (optional)

• green onion
• nutritional yeast
• sea salt
• salsa
• chipotle vegenaise

What to do

1. Filling. Cube yam/sweet potato. Melt coconut oil on med heat in a large frying pan. Add the cubed potato and fry for 5 minutes. Add 5 Tbsp. filtered water to the pan, continue frying for 20 minutes or until soft. Stir every 5 minutes.

2. When the potato is very soft add cooked brown rice, mustard, cinnamon, garam masala and curry. Mash. Boil peas for 2 minutes then add to the filling and stir in, do not mash peas. Add filling to a bowl and place by your dough working area/station. Wash pan.

3. Dough. When filling is done, add the dry dough ingredients to a bowl and stir so there are no clumps. Add wet ingredients. Stir well. If mixture is too wet (sticking to hands) sprinkle on brown rice flour and need dough until firm. Form dough into 9-10 plum sized balls.

4. Rip two 1 foot size pieces of saran wrap. One for on the counter and the other one for on top of the dough.

5. Place 1 plum sized piece of dough between the two layers of saran wrap. Grab rolling pin and roll, on top of saran, the dough until it is thin (look at picture above). Must be an oval, oblong shape. 4 inches X 3 inches, give'r take. Take top piece of saran off.

6. Place 6 tsp. of coconut oil into your frying pan and turn on to medium heat.

7. Place a large spoonful (look at pictures above) to the middle of the dough. Fold in one side over the filling by holding the bottom saran wrap layer. Then fold over another, and another. So there are three corners. Lightly press the corners shut. Grab samaso with the saran wrap still on the bottom and carefully add to the pan of hot coconut oil. Fry each samosa in the pan for 4 minutes on each side.

8. Repeat step 5, 6 & 7 until all the dough is gone. Any left over filling is great to eat on it's own for left overs or can be used for more samosas. (I haven't froze the samosas yet but I would think they would keep well if they were frozen)

9. Serve them with green onion, nutritional yeast, sea salt, salsa, chipotle vegenaise or just eat them plain. Best when they are hot, fresh out of the pan.

Nutritional note: Coconut oil is the ONLY oil that can be heated at high temperatures without turning into a trans fat. So frying these samosas in coconut oil is the healthiest way to go.

Be sure to check out more tips on my facebook page Mandys Tips For Everyday Health. Thanks again for reading and happy cooking!