Khasta Kachori

Long ago when I was a new bride with limited cooking experience, Manjula's Kitchen saved many of my evenings where I was missing the street food from back home. She taught me many recipes and the proper way of making them.

The Kachori I made today, I never thought they will puff up like they did the first time I made them. I was soooo happy. And even yesterday they puffed up so nicely and delicious. My kids liked them too, so....I will be maaing kachoris more often

Khasta Kachori (Deep fried puffs with spicy lentil stuffing)

Khasta Kachori

Kachori with moong filling

Ingredients for dough:

1. 11/2 cup all purpose flour
2. 1/2 teaspoon each of salt, carom seeds
3. 2 tablespoons oil
4. chilled water as needed

Ingredients for Filling:

1. 1/2 cup yellow moong dal
2. 1/2 teaspoon each of salt, chilli flakes, fennel seeds
3. 1 teaspoon each of grated ginger or ginger powder, coriander seeds
4. 2 teaspoons oil
5. Warm water 2 tablespoons

Mix the all purpose flour with all the ingredients except water. Add water 1 tablespoon at a time and mix till the dough comes together. Cover and set aside for 20 minutes.

Grind the fennel seeds and coriander seeds just a tad, until they break a little. Take them out and set aside. Grind the monng dal to almost powder. Heat oil in a pan and fry the moon dal powder, coriander and fennel seeds and ginger till the dal becomes golden brown and you start getting nice aroma. Mix all the other ingredients and set it aside to cool.

After it cooled, add 2 tablespoons warm water and mix.

Knead the dough for 1 minute and divide it into 12 parts. With your palm and fingers make it into 3 inch disks with the middle being  a little more thicker than the edges. Add a teaspoon of filling and close the edges into a dumpling and set aside for a few minutes.

Heat the oil for deep frying. With you path flatten the filled balls into 3 inch disks again making sure there are no holes. Add a tiny piece of dough and it should come to the surface slowly. Add a few kachoris and fry for 5-6 minutes until they become golden brown. Drain, let cool for a bit and serve as is with sweet yogurt, tamarind and date chutney and mint chutney

Sweet Yougurt toping

Mix about 1/2 cup plain yogurt with 11/2 tablespoons of sugar and beat well. Serve on top of sev puri or Kachori

Lamb Samosa

In India, samosa and pakoda are the go to snacks for college students and employees. They are affordable, yummy and available whenever and wherever you feel hungry. But after coming to the US there was not one good place to get samosas. And then one of the sweet stores' had a change of management and a change in their samosa recipe. So we became a regular of that store. But...then came the move.
                         I have tried my hand at making so many things but samosas eluded me for soooooo long. But finally today I found a recipe and boy oh boy the samosas came out perfectly golden brown and super delicious. Especially the crust, which turned out to be such a disaster for me always. I did not change anything from the recipe of the crust of that website. But the filling is my own. It is a ground meat /lamb filling.So here is the samosa recipe

Lamb Samosa (Indian empanada's stuffed with ground lamb)

Lamb/meat Samosa

Ingredients
For Crust:

• 2 cups maida or all purpose flour
• 1 tbsp ghee or oil (The original recipe calls for 4 tbsp)
• 1/4 cup or more of water (add 1 tablespoon at a time)
• 1 tsp carom seeds (ajwain)
• salt as required ( i added ¾ tsp salt)
• oil for deep frying

For Lamb/meat filling:

11/2 cup Kheema Fry

1 medium large potato boiled, peeled and mashed

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 green chilly chopped fine (optional)

The samosa crust

Take the flour, carom seeds, salt in a bowl. mix well and add ghee or oil.
Mix the flour with your hands, the whole mixture should clump-up when joined.
Add 1 tablespoon of water at a time and begin to knead adding water as required.
knead to a firm dough. cover the dough with a moistened napkin and keep aside for 30-40 mins.

Mix all the ingredients of the filling together and set aside.

Divide the dough into 5 parts and make it into 6-7 inch circles , on a clean countertop with a rolling pin. Cut it into two half circles. Add a heaped tablespoon of the filling . Apply water to all the edges of the samosa crust with a wet finger and fold one half to make a triangle. Fold the other half over it and pinch the edges together.

Heat the oil in a pan to medium high heat and fry the samosas for 5-7 minutes a piece or until golden brown, turning every minute. Serve with masala chai and ketchup