Spusht: Cocktail Samosa with Potatoes and Peas Filling

Cocktail Samosa is smaller than the regular size samosa, more so for a party or large gathering and easier to have along with a drink. Serving these bite-size cocktail samosa as appetizers or transforming them into a samosa chaat is also possible and a great idea.

Alike the regular samosa, you can make a cocktail samosa with any of the stuffing: potato, peas, onion, cauliflower, paneer, and so on too. The only difference would be smaller pieces of vegetables chopped, crumbled or mashed to be able to fill inside a small samosa.

Small Sized Cocktail Samosa for Parties or Large Gatherings

There are three parts to making a samosa:

(i) cooking the potatoes and peas stuffing, and making the samosa dough,

(ii) shaping the dough, and filling the stuffing in samosa dough, and

(iii) frying the samosa, and resisting the urge to eat it hot.

easy cocktail samosa recipe with potatoes and peas filling

Aloo Matar Cocktail Samosa Recipe (Samosa with Potatoes and Peas Filling)

Yield: about 18 small samosas

Step 1: Prepare the Potato and Peas Stuffing, and Make the Samosa Dough
This is a very easy samosa recipe with potato and peas filling for a vegetarian samosa:

Ingredients for Samosa Stuffing

3 boiled potatoes [aloo] equals to about 1.5 cup, packed

¼ cup boiled green peas [matar]

½ Tbsp oil

Tempering: ¼ tsp mustard seeds [rai] + ¼ tsp cumin seeds [jeera] + ⅛ tsp asafetida [heeng]

Few (about 4-5) curry leaves [kari patta], cut randomly in small pieces with scissor

½ - ¾ Tbsp green chili paste (adjust to taste) + 1 tsp ginger paste

½ - ¾ tsp salt (adjust to taste)

2 Tbsp chopped cashew nut pieces

1 Tbsp chopped raisin pieces
¼ tsp garam masala (optional)

2 Tbsp chopped coriander leaves/cilantro [hara dhaniya]

1 Tbsp lemon juice

How to Make Potatoes and Peas Samosa Stuffing:
Prep: Pressure cook potatoes and green peas on medium heat until one whistle, or boil the potatoes and peas in a saucepan until tender. Let cool, peel and chop the potatoes in small pieces, and keep aside along with the green peas.

How to Make Potatoes and Peas Samosa Stuffing

Heat oil in a medium pan. When hot, add the tempering: mustard seeds, cumin seeds, and asafetida. When it starts crackling, add curry leaves, green chili paste, ginger paste, and sauté for few seconds. {You can use finely chopped green chilies and freshly grated ginger instead too.} Now add the chopped potatoes + green peas + salt + sugar + cashew nuts + raisin + garam masala (if using), mix well and let cook for a minute or two. Mash a little in case the pieces are too big to fit into a small samosa. Add cilantro + lemon juice, mix well, switch off the heat. The aloo matar (potato and peas) stuffing for samosa is ready, let the stuffing cool by the time you knead the samosa dough.

You remember I told you how wonderful it is that you can use this exact stuffing to make a samosa or a potato and peas stuffed paratha? Yep, this is it. Just that for a paratha, you mash the entire mixture so that your paratha rolls out smoothly.

Popular Indian snack: Samosa | Small Bite Size Samosa

To make a cocktail samosa easier, tastier, and prettier – you can use the ready-made puff pastry dough as the cover and use any of the fillings.

Easier: no need to make a dough; instead you cut out rectangles and fold into triangle shape and fill in

Tastier: puff pastry dough will be flakier and crispier

Prettier: you will get evenly shaped and sized triangles

Otherwise, it is very easy to make a dough too for samosa covers. Here’s how:

Ingredients for samosa dough (samosa shell/samosa covering/samosa wrap):

For 18 small samosas
1 cup all-purpose flour

¼ cup semolina (sooji / rawa)

⅛ tsp salt

2 Tbsp melted ghee or oil

For kneading: ¼ cup water (or more)

For binding: mix ½ tsp cornstarch + 1 tsp water

How to make the samosa dough:

In a medium mixing bowl, add the flour + semolina + salt + ghee/oil and mix well so that everything blends. Start by mixing ¼ cup water to knead into a dough. Add more water in small increments, kneading until you get a smooth dough. Lightly coat the dough with a few drops of oil and keep it covered for 10-15 minutes. Keeping it covered helps the flour absorb the water and become softer in its own moisture, and coating with oil helps the dough to not form a dry skin. You can keep this dough refrigerated for hours or two days until you are ready to make samosa. Remove 30 minutes before you are ready to use the dough, knead it for 5 seconds and continue.

Samosa: fried triangle pastry with savory filling

Step 2: Shaping the samosa dough and filling the potato & peas mixture

Divide the dough into 9 balls. Divide the stuffing into 18 portions. Roll out each ball into a circle with a 4 inch diameter, cut from one end to another from the center to make two semi-circles. Each semi-circle makes one samosa. Apply the cornstarch + water mixture on the straight edge to bind it together by slightly overlapping one edge over the other, press and form a cone shape. Fill the stuffing in the cone, apply the binding mixture on the inner corner of the open edge and press together to seal. Flatten the samosa gently, and place it seam side down. Cover with a cloth or paper towel as you work on more samosas, and slide each samosa under the cloth so that the samosa covering does not dry out. The cloth does not have to be moist. Make sure you seal from all ends otherwise if the samosa opens while frying, the stuffing will begin to scatter in the oil, and the oil will begin to seep inside the samosa. Continue the same procedure with all the semi-circles, make half the quantity of samosas, and get the oil in a medium deep pan/wok (or kadhai) ready on medium heat by the time you continue making the remaining samosa.

How to make the samosa dough | How to fold, fill, and fry a samosa

Step 3: Frying Samosa

You need: enough oil in the pan to fry as many number of samosas as you can while also having enough space to flip the samosa for frying evenly on all sides.

When the oil is hot, turn the heat to MEDIUM-LOW and put in your prepared samosas and deep fry. Keep flipping them around once in a while until they reach a light brown color. You can choose to half-fry them (frying until just a little light brown) and fry them again later when you want to serve hot samosa. Frying on medium-low heat will make sure the samosa crust is crisp even after a day or two. Frying on high heat makes the samosa crust soft the next day. Drain the fried samosa on paper towel or absorbent paper. When the samosa completely cools down in a few hours, you can transfer it to an air-tight container. Stays fresh at room temperature for three days, stays good in a refrigerator for a month. Heat the samosa in a toaster again when you want to eat one.

I have not tried baking the samosa, so if you are not into frying you might want to give it a try. Though, I'm sure it will not come anywhere close to the magic of a fried samosa. Also, feel free to skip the peas, cashew nuts, or raisins if they're not your thing.