The Samosa Project

The First Bite

Samosas: the cone-shaped savory pastries of my childhood! Between the ages of one and five I lived in Pakistan, in an area with delicious authentic south asian snack food-stalls around every corner. This is typical in South Asia, and samosas play a large role in this. The open market near our house in Islamabad used to host our favorite samosa spot. The lines were long but that was a small price to pay for the best samosas on that side of the Indus river. Since I bit into my first delicious samosa in Pakistan a decade ago, I constantly crave the savory snack.

Since moving to the US ten years ago, my cravings, unfortunately, have been left unfulfilled. Fresh samosas are hard to come by where we live, and although they’ve grown popular in the US, they’re nowhere near as common here as they are in south Asia or the middle east.

However, with a desperate need to fundraise, an opportunity arose to satisfy my cravings.

Samosa Connection: Barpak Children’s Reading and Multimedia Center

In 2015, the Gorkha earthquake (a massive 7.9 magnitude quake), hit Nepal, leaving mass destruction in its wake. The earthquake wreaked havoc throughout the country, taking countless lives with it. Barpak, the epicenter of the quake, was left demolished with schools and educational centers in rubble.

We knew we couldn’t just sit around and do nothing, especially since we have so many friends and family members in Nepal. So the summer after the earthquake, in 2016, my older sister went off to Barpak to build a reading room/educational center for the kids there. Even though I was too young to go as a volunteer that first time around (I was 11 at the time), I helped her with fundraising. I went with my sister on the second trip in 2018, and took technology and more educational resources to the village.

my sister, Maya Pandey, is pictured above sitting inside the library right before it’s opening

Although this was much needed in Barpak, building a well-functioning learning center, full of books and other educational materials,  and managed by  well-trained staff was far from cheap. The remote village had few resources and needed all the help to recover from the devastation. We tried multiple ways to fundraise — from bake sales to setting up a GoFundMe page; but through our months of experimentation we reached an unusual conclusion on what worked best for the project. Samosas-for-a-cause.

When we first started making and selling samosas to family and friends we didn’t expect many sales. However, people kept coming back for the samosas! They quickly took off and became our main fundraiser. Year after year, as we fundraise to keep the learning centers at Barpak going, we have kept making more samosas. As interest in these crispy pastries increased, we transitioned from reaching out to relatives and family friends to selling samosas through Arlington and Falls Church farmers markets and storefronts of fairtrade stores. Once we even set up a stall in front of the Arlington Beer Garden during the 2016 World Cup.

With a raging epidemic in our midst, forcing us to socially distance, we couldn’t do public sales this year. So instead, we decided to put up a SignupGenius for online orders and make contactless deliveries. Although it was harder to get sales this way, it was still a very rewarding and gratifying project.

Origin

To backtrack a little, although samosas are a staple south Asian snack, they didn’t really originate in South Asia. This may come as a surprise since samosas are thought to be an Indian snack. The origin of the dish can actually be traced back to the Mughal kitchens a few centuries back. They only traveled through the Indian subcontinent with Mughal expansion. The original samosas are said to have been filled with minced chicken or lamb and was adapted into the current vegetarian version with spicy potato filling (although the original is still popular in some areas).

Process

Making samosas turned out to be a pretty laborious process. We made around 400 and it took around 12 hours in total, not including our occasional breaks in between.

There were multiple steps to the process: first making the filling and dough, then making mounds of dough out of the dough mixture, followed by flattening and rolling out these dough balls to make samosa wraps. The rolled out dough wrapper would then be cut in halves, and stuffed with the spicy potato filling, securely closing them, and finally, deep-frying them.

Because they take so long to make, we decided to run a family assembly-line-style process. We’d switch around our stations but there would always be someone working on each role.

I started off making the dough, which required a lot of arm power because the batches were so big. First, I thoroughly hand mixed the ingredients, then, the second time through, I used a hand mixer to make sure the oil and the flour incorporated properly. Next, I added the water and kneaded the dough until it became a tight ball. I let the mixture sit for an hour or so and then started rolling the dough into balls. My mother made the filling — red potatoes, green peas, and purple onions, along with salt, cumin powder and mango powder. Large batches of filling were made (and of course taste-tested), and ready to fill the samosa wraps with.

This is when the assembly line came in handy.

My first job was rolling the dough balls, a two-step role. I started off by weighing the dough balls (60 grams each), then rolled each one into balls. The goal is to make as perfectly spherical and smooth dough balls as possible. Round balls are ideal because they make smooth, flat wrappings for the filling.

For the second “station” I used a hand crank tortilla press, a simple kitchen device  with a handle that I’d press down on to flatten out the dough. The press makes the dough come out uniformly smooth, without cracked or separated edges, making it easier to roll out right after.

Then I rolled out the flattened dough. We have a silicon mat that allows us to measure the size of the rolled wrap. Once it reached the perfect oval size (around 8 by 4 inches) I’d cut the ellipse-shaped dough wrapping in half, after which it would be ready for arguably the hardest step in the samosa making process — filling and sealing the wraps.

Filling and sealing the samosas took the longest time for me to learn. Once I made an envelope for the filling with the rolled and cut dough-wrap, using water to seal the cone shape, I scooped the potato mixture into the dough wrap. Similar to the dough balls, the filling had to be weighed as well to ensure it was between 40 and 45 grams before it was put into the wrapper. Following this, I closed and sealed the samosas.

I never truly mastered it, but there’s a certain technique to folding the dough wrapper that is painstakingly hard to learn. First, you have to ensure that the “nose” or top is made into a sharp point that won’t open up when deep-fried. Next, you fold the bottom up and seal it to make sure of the same thing. The seal has to hold through the frying of the samosas, so the folds have to be strong enough to endure time and intense heat.

We continued on in this fashion, switching around in roles of the assembly line, but keeping up a constant pace even when it was late at night. We eventually had to split the samosa-making into a two-day project because we were getting tired and sluggish. We emptied and filled our refrigerator with samosas for the night and took a much needed rest from our samosa making.

The second day, I got up bright and early and mixed a new batch of dough and filling. My parents started frying the samosas we had made the night before and my sister and I worked on finishing up the making of the samosas.

Finally, after hours of hard work, we finished with some dough to spare. While my parents fried the samosas, I rolled it out and made it into nimki, a south Asian snack made with dough similar to the one we were already working with. Nimki reminds me of my grandmother in Nepal, who used to make them for me. I decided to make some for us since we’d been missing out on her delicious cooking. I rolled out the dough, cut them into fun shapes, and fried them along with the samosas.

I also tried my hand at frying the samosas which turned out to be a delicate balancing act on its own. The samosas had to be fried in medium heat (somewhere between 350 and 375  degrees Fahrenheit). I used my dad’s infrared thermometer to monitor the temperature and to make sure the oil stayed at a constant temperature. I flipped around the samosas with a long-handled spatula until they were cooked all the way through.

Another thing I had to watch out for was the samosas splitting open. This only happened a few times, but it was disastrous for the samosas and would cause the ingredients to spill out. This is a consequence of not closing the samosas well or rolling the dough out so thin that the filling punctures a hole in the samosa wrap. The samosas that ended up this way were treated as our “tester” (aka snack) samosas. 

Finally, once the samosas were done, it was time to pack and deliver them. My sister and I adopted the assembly-line technique once again in order to pack the orders. Each container would be filled with 10 samosas, along with my mom’s famous tamarind chutney that was to be served along with the samosas. We ordered disposable food-grade aluminum containers to pack the samosas in, and small plastic containers for the chutney. Finally, we stuck a flyer with information on the Barpak project on top of each container. Then we loaded up my sister’s car full of samosa containers, ready to deliver them.

Taste

We rarely make samosas these days because they take so long. It’s only really worth it if there are large batches being made, so it's a special treat to enjoy samosas once in a while. The flaky shell flawlessly delivers a crisp crunch with every bite and the filling fills you with a certain warmth each time. Not only is it perfectly seasoned, but the peas and potatoes also add a wonderful texture to the mix.

After the samosas were done, I also fried the nimki as a little side project. Through trial and error, I found that the slightly overcooked nimkis ended up being the best kind. Not only did they develop a satisfying crunch, but they also had a woody flavor that I grew fond of. It turned out I wasn’t the only one! My family loved them as well and they quickly disappeared after just a few days. Again, these were just for us to enjoy after our hard work, but they were still fun to make and ended up being a fantastic snack.

Our samosa fundraisers — from making the samosas to delivering them — are always a fulfilling experience. It is deeply satisfying to know that every step we take is a step towards the children in Barpak having a place to read with friends, learn new things and develop a love for books, reading, and hopefully lifelong learning.

Photo Credits:

Maya Pandey