What better day to whip up some Samosas than Holi! Holi, the festival of colors, falls on March 17 this year. The festival has several mythological stories behind it and celebrated is different ways in parts on India. Most celebrations involve a bonfire and playing with colors, dry or wet, loosening of the norms. Over the years, the meaning and the reasons to celebrate have been forgotten and twisted up.
This year, let us celebrate this festival to celebrate family and friends, healthy food, celebrate life, human or animal and make these plant based goodies!
Samosas are a very popular snack in India too, and there are several variations that are available. These pretty pastries on today’s post are filled with Mung dal and peas spiced with fennel and coriander. The pastry dough has whole wheat and semolina and is Baked. You can also deep fry these at medium high temperature.
Fill them with Samosa potatoes and bake. You can also bake the wrappers into Mathri/Crackers. Roll them out. Cut up into squares and bake.
What are your favorite Indian snacks? Did you see the new Zouq snack products – the golden lentils, curry crunch. I was like what the.. all that is just different forms of Indian Chivda packaged up and renamed a bit. and Vegnews and everyone picked it up! Ha!
Steps:
Dry roast the fennel and coriander seeds.
Grind the seeds. In the same pan, add oil and heat on medium heat. Add the ground seeds, turmeric, cayenne and coriander powder and cook for a minute.
Add the soaked mung dal and cook for 5 minutes. Add peas and continue to cook until dry.
Knead the dough and let rest for 10 minutes. Then roll out small balls into circles. Cut the circles into halfs.
Fold the edges of the half circle and seal with water. fill the cone with the filling and seal the bottom with water.
Make all the samosas.
Bake or fry and serve with chutneys.
Baked Mung Dal Samosas. – Savory Pastries filled with spiced yellow lentils.
Allergen Information: Free of dairy, egg, corn, soy, yeast. Use a gf pastry dough to make these gluten-free.
Makes 8 to 10
Ingredients:
Filling:
1/2 cup Mung dal (split moong bean) also called petite yellow lentils
2 tsp fennel seeds
2 tsp coriander seeds
a generous pinch of asafetida(hing)
1/2 tsp each of garam masala, cayenne powder, coriander powder, turmeric, salt
2 tsp oil
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 Tbsp ginger minced
1/4 cup peas, frozen or fresh
Wrapper:
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup unbleached white flour
1 Tablespoon semolina
1 Tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 tsp salt
a generous pinch of baking soda
a generous dash of black pepper
1/4 tsp ajwain (carom seeds) or cumin seeds
2 tsp olive oil
1/4 cup + 1 Tbsp water
Method:
Filling:
Wash the mung dal. Soak the Mung Dal in hot water for an hour. (heat up 1 cup water to a good hot state. Add to the bowl with the washed mung dal and let sit for an hour).
In a pan, dry roast the fennel seeds and coriander seeds on medium heat for 2 minutes.
Cool and blend with the garam masala, cayenne, coriander powder, turmeric, salt and asafetida into a coarse mixture.
In a pan, add oil and heat on medium heat. Add the garlic and ginger and cook for 2 minutes or until garlic is golden.
Add the ground spices and cook for half a minute.
Drain and add the mung dal and mix well. Reduce heat to low-medium.
Add 2 Tbsp water, mix, cover and cook for 6 minutes.
Add in the peas, mix in, cover and cook for another 4 minutes or until tender to preference. Add a splash of water and cook longer if needed. Taste and adjust salt and spice.
Wrapper:
In a bowl, add the flours, starch, semolina, salt, baking soda, carom seeds and black pepper and whisk well. Add the oil and mix to form crumbs. Add 1/4 cup water and knead. Add more water if needed, and knead into a smooth dough (not too soft, not too stiff).
Let the dough sit covered by a towel for 10 minutes.
Make small balls and roll it out to 5 to 6 inch rounds. Cut the round into half circles.
Take one half circle, fold and make a cone. Apply water on the edges to join. Fill the cone with 1-2 Tbsp of the filling. Seal the bottom using water. Here is a video.
Keep the samosas covered until all are ready to bake.
Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees F. Brush a little oil on the samosas. Bake for 20-25 minutes.
Serve with cilantro chutney and date tamarind chutney.
Variations: Use other fillings like Samosa potatoes. other lentils cooked with indian spices, berbere spiced lentils.
Other Savories to make for Holi.
Butternut Rosemary Onion Crackers.
Cooked Chickpea Crackers. GF
Potato Rice Paare. GF Baked
Chivda – Crunchy Snacks with puffed grains, roasted nuts/chickpeas/lentils and dried fruit.
Drinks:
Thandai – Spiced Almond milk drink
Mango Lassi – Mango Yogurt Smoothie
Sweets:
Kesar Peda – Saffron Infused almond cookie fudge GF
Gulab Jamun – doughnuts soaked in cardamom syrup. Regular and Gluten-free versions
Rajgira Burfi – Amaranth Coconut burfi. GF
Apple Jalebi with Rabri – Sweet Apple fritters with saffron cream
Besan Laddoo – Sweet chickpea flour balls GF
Kesar Kulfi – Saffron Infused Ice cream GF
Choorma – Oil-free Wheat crumble
For more Vegan Sweets like Rasmalai, Rasgulla, Mysore Pak, Sandesh, buy my Ebook here.
Happy Holi!
Caitlin says
March 15, 2014 at 10:58 amis it time for holi already? these looks great! i love the picture when they look like little pockets 😉
Ceara @ Ceara's Kitchen says
March 15, 2014 at 1:47 pmI love all of your recipes – they always make my mouth water and I can’t wait to try your latest samosas 🙂 Trying your mango chutney as a side tonight along with some homemade Eggplant Dhal! 🙂
maesh @ flipkart says
March 15, 2014 at 3:42 pmwow.. explained from very basic and with images.. i love your site.. will try this and share my experience
coconutandberries says
March 15, 2014 at 6:40 pmThose samosas look so so good! The little shapes cone shapes are adorable too. I’d love to try some of your crackers as well. Happy Holi! (If that’s what you say…)
Indigo Moon BC says
March 16, 2014 at 12:13 amThese recipes are awesome! I would like to try the samosas but don’t have access to semolina flour…is there something I can substitute? Thanks
Annie says
March 17, 2014 at 2:33 pmI love samosas but always feel guilty about eating them. Baking I can handle! Beautiful.
Anonymous says
March 19, 2014 at 12:01 amLove your blog!!
Cubic Zirconia Sapphire says
March 25, 2014 at 5:31 amYour article is very helpful thank you very much for sharing .
Sunday Morning Banana Pancakes says
March 29, 2014 at 11:03 pmI will take 12 of these please:)
Carmen Zaldivar says
April 7, 2014 at 5:00 pmI love Indian food and one of my favorite deserts is the rice pudding, could you post the recipe? Thanks
[email protected]
Corrin Radd says
April 30, 2014 at 12:41 amMade these today, half with potato filling and half with the dal–they were both great, though my family thought the potato ones were best.
Richa says
April 30, 2014 at 1:04 ami don’t blame them. i love potato samosas too. 🙂 the dal ones are amazing dripping with tamarind date chutney
ShropshireLass says
June 9, 2014 at 3:24 pmWhat a great recipe – samosas are an all time favorite of mine. Can you provide a GF recipe for the pastry? Thank you.
Richa says
June 9, 2014 at 7:27 pmyou can try this gf potsticker wrapper http://www.veganricha.com/2014/03/gluten-free-potstickers-with-tempeh-and.html . or use any gf flour blend + xanthan gum and try.
Nikki says
June 11, 2014 at 5:43 pmI boiled the mung dal for 1 hr but they turned to sludge. When I tried to drain & rinse them I lost half of the quantity down the drain! Why might that be? 🙁
Richa says
June 11, 2014 at 8:04 pmyou have to just soak them. Add enough heated up water in the bowl to about and inch above the mung dal and let sit for an hour. if you cook it, the dal will get cooked and hence the sludge. the sludge can be made int oa mung dal soup like this one http://www.veganricha.com/2013/07/split-mung-bean-stew-yellow-mung-dal.html
i’ll update the instructiont to be more clear.
Anne-Marie says
September 28, 2014 at 11:05 pmYesterday I made onion pakoras but I might have said samosas instead…when my 8 year old son realized we were not having samosas but pakoras, he cried his heart out!
So with all this delicious Indian food leftover from yesterday I planed on serving tonight, I surprised my son with those samosas. I used french lentils and potatoes in the stuffing. They were absolutely delicious!! It made him ate a lot of cucumbers, as they were a bit too hot for him, but my boyfriend and I loved the heat.
Thanks to you (I tried other Indian recipes of yours), my Indian food cooking skills have reached an upper Ievel. I am now becoming a master of spices! This is good because since we moved in the country, we can’t go to those typical family-owned Indian restaurant we loved to go to when we lived in Montreal. Plus, we can have 100% vegan Indian food when we cook it ourselves.
Richa says
September 29, 2014 at 1:46 amaww. that is so sweet. I am so glad he finally got some samosas! I am so happy you are loving the Indian recipes. My first cookbook is Indian Vegan cookbook, so keep an eye out for 140 + more awesome Indian recipes!
Ranjana says
October 27, 2015 at 6:40 amRicha, can I substitute semolina with rice flour? I don’t have semolina:(
Richa says
October 27, 2015 at 10:22 amyes use rice flour.
Pasha Davidson says
December 17, 2015 at 12:46 pmI’m making these tonight!
I actually had a question regarding the chutney you linked to. I’ve had the dates jaggery, and water on a medium boil for about an hour and a half, and I keep having to add water (the first commenter says the same thing) But looking at the directions it says “2 hours of prep”, and now I think maybe I’m just supposed to soak the dates for 2 hours and not cook them?
Richa says
December 17, 2015 at 1:16 pmi think that one calls for cooking them for 2 hours. there is a super quick chutney in the book. page 245.
Pasha Davidson says
December 17, 2015 at 1:27 pmahh so cool! I should’ve looked. Thank you so much!
Krithika says
January 20, 2016 at 11:13 amCould I make the dough and filling a day or two in advance and store it in the fridge? Or should I assemble these and store them till I’m ready to bake?
Richa says
January 20, 2016 at 11:32 amYou can assemble them and refrigerate for upto 3 days. The filling should be dry else the moisture will leak into the dough wrapper. Store in am airtight container. Once you fill up the container, place a lightly damp paper towel on the top layer. This will prevent drying of the dough. The dough starts to dry or darken with time, so ideally a day ahead would be best.
Sandra says
January 19, 2019 at 6:54 amRicha
I may be mis-interpreting your directions but there is a samosa recipe in your “Indian Kitchen” cookbook which I find confusing. Baked Potato Samosas – makes 12 to 14.
You say to divide the dough into 12-14 small balls, roll into an oval shape and then cut each in half. Twelve balls, cut in half equals 24. Is this correct?
Sandra
Richa says
January 19, 2019 at 12:30 pmthat might be an error. it should be 6 to 8 balls to make 12 to 16 samosas depending on the size and stuffing you add.
Amy says
November 26, 2020 at 8:26 pmHi how many times do i multiply to use the potato filling for this recipe?
Vegan Richa Support says
November 26, 2020 at 10:07 pmjust the one recipe. no multiplying required =)