Samosa from South Africa

Most of you will look at this and think 'Samosa from South Africa?'  She has to be kidding.  Well I kid you not.  While samosas might have originated in India, other countries have taken the original recipe and adapted them to make it their own.  Samosas are very popular all over East Africa, for instance, and while more similar to the South African samosas than the Indian samosas, they lack that bite.  Samosas are a very popular South African snack and their taste does differ in the different provinces.  The ones in Kwazulu for example have a lot more chilies in them.  The ones I make are Cape Malay samosas from my home town of Cape Town.  Wherever I've lived in the world, I have always made my own samosas.  Especially when they are not readily available.  They have proved to be a popular bar snack at pub quizzes.  The only slightly challenging part of this recipe is the folding of the samosa skin or wrap, but once you do a couple you'll become a master.
The filling can be lamb, chicken, fish or beef mince if you want a meat one.  Potato and peas is the vegetarian variety.  For this recipe I used chicken mince.

Samosa filling

1kg chicken/beef/lamb mince

2 onions finely chopped

1 teaspoon salt

5 teaspoons curry powder

2 teaspoons chili powder

2 teaspoons turmeric

1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh ginger

1 garlic clove finely chopped

1 chili finely chopped

1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh coriander leaves

Brown the onions, add in garlic, ginger and chili.  When soft add in the mince and stir to prevent it from sticking to the bottom of your pan.  Add in all the seasonings and let it simmer until cooked through.  You don't want it to be a wet mixture, rather err on the dry side.

Samosa wrap/pastry/paaper/skin

(Whatever you want to call it is okay.  We don't judge.)

2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup water
cornflour for sprinkling
oil for schmeering 
1/4 cup of flour and water paste for glue

Put dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. (Not the cornflour.)  Make a well in the centre and add in the water a little at a time, kneading it together, until you have a soft dough that does not stick to your fingers.  Let the dough rest for about 15 minutes while you get the rolling area ready.  Divide the dough into 12 golf-ball sized pieces.  Set them aside and cover with a damp cloth so they don't dry out.  Then take them one at a time and roll it out into a disc the size of your hand.  Schmeer oil onto the top of the disc and sprinkle a little cornflour to prevent sticking.  Place the next disc on top.  Do this until you have a tower of six discs, all with oil schmeered on their top and a sprinkle of cornflour.  You do not need to schmeer oil or sprinkle cornflour on the top disc.  Now repeat and do the same to the remaining 6 balls so that you'll have two towers of 6 discs each.  The next step is to roll and flatten the tower so that it is about the size of a dinner plate.  Try and make it more like a rectangle.  You should now have two flat large rectangles.  Place your samosa skin rectangles on a greased baking sheet and pop it into the oven at about 120 degrees Celsius for 3 minutes.  Take it out of the oven and using a sharp knife, cut the rectangles into long strips about 6cm wide.  The strips should pull apart.  Fold each strip to make a pocket and put about 2 teaspoons of filling inside the pocket.  Close the pocket, sealing the filling inside, by folding the strip into a triangle.  Keep folding until you come to the end of the strip.  The last bit use your flour and water paste to glue the end bit down so it doesn't unravel when deep-frying.
Fry in hot oil or for the health-conscious, bake in an oven until the wrapping is crisp.

Cindy Vine is a South African currently living and working in Kyiv Ukraine.  She is the author of Hush Baby, Defective, Not Telling and C U @ 8.  All her books are available on Amazon in both Kindle and print format.