[Sca-cooks] Persian AND Indian samosa! Non-mystery keema this time!

[David Friedman]

In our experience, recipes from the _Ain i Akbari_ end up very salty. 
We've been told that that's true of Indian food in India today, possibly 
due to the hot climate.


On 6/19/19 9:56 PM, pixel wrote:
> I stopped by the Indian grocery hoping for more frozen keema. Alas, there
> was none. But they'd just gotten a new meat delivery, so I picked up a bit
> more than 4 lbs of fresh boneless lamb chunks (4.3 lb total before any
> trimming) and ran it through my meat grinder. I'm not sure of the fat
> content, although it was less than the mystery keema since I didn't need to
> drain any extra fat, although one of the two pans did need some of the
> additional non-fatty liquid removed.
>
> I much prefer the texture of fresh-ground lamb to
> ground-packed-frozen-thawed lamb, I have to say. Also, the mystery keema
> was almost definitely lamb.
>
> Before I looked at recipes, I cooked the keema in two roughly equal batches
> with a bit of vegetable oil (probably a couple of T each) and added 1 1/2 c
> of frozen onion paste to each batch. The onion paste: a lot of onions,
> diced up, cooked in ghee to a medium golden brown, reduced to a paste with
> my trusty hand blender (with a little water added to facilitate blending),
> and frozen in 1/2 cup amounts.
>
> So we've got
>
> 2lbs keema
> 1 1/2 c onion paste
>
> I looked at the Ain i Akbari and did math and said "wow, that's a lot of
> salt"
>
> Ain i Akbari quantities, which Cariadoc so kindly added to my previous
> e-mail on the topic:
>
> Qutab, which the people of Hind call sanbusa: This is made in several ways.
> 10 s. meat; 4 s. fine flour; 2 s. ghee; 1 s. onions; 1/4 s. fresh ginger;
> 1/2 s. salt; 2 d. pepper and coriander seed; cardamom, cumin seeds, cloves,
> 1 d. of each, 1/4 s. of sumaq. This can be cooked in twenty different ways,
> and gives four full dishes.
>
> (*Ain i Akbari* Volume I, page. 63)
>
> Units used in the Ain I Akbari are: 1 ser =
> 2 lb 2 oz, 1 dam = oz.
>
> So I was reading the spices from various period samosa/sanbusak recipes
> aloud to the Consort, when I got to Plain Samosa from Bavarchi:
>
> Take white red meat, as much as desired, dice thoroughly, and fry in oil.
> Add plenty of diced onions and add sumac juice, or if desired, its powder.
> Add warm spices, cumin, and coriander. Take thin excellent bread, fold
> over, and a cut four-finger-width length off both its ends, cut again from
> the middle to the same size [shapes] and fold triangularly [to form a
> cone], secure its edges with dough and stuff it with necessary amount of
> the filling (qeyme), close its (the round cone) edge up over the filling
> (qeyme) and secure its edge with dough and fry in oil. If desired, eat it
> with sumac which would be good.
>
> And I said "hey, that's almost the same as the Ain i Akbari!"
>
> So, using the Bavarchi and some trial and error, the final spicing ended up
> being
>
> 2 lb keema browned in 3 T vegetable oil
> 1 1/2 c onion paste
>
> 1 T and 2 t dried ginger
> 1 T and 2 t ground sumac
> 1 t ground cloves
> 1 t ground black pepper
> 3/4 t cinnamon, which was not intentional
> 1 1/2 t ground coriander
> 1 1/2 t ground cumin
> 1 1/2 t ground cardamom
>
> It is delicious. I used a combination of gyoza wrappers (I call them
> gyozamosa) and empanada wrappers and fried them in peanut oil (because my
> frying oil is currently peanut oil). I did not add salt, because the
> Bavarchi recipe does not explicitly call for it and then it slipped my mind.
>
> The empanada wrappers are available frozen at your local Mexican/Latinx
> grocery, they come in three sizes. I used the Goya brand. I got the large
> ones, and if you cut them in half the resulting samosas are about the same
> size as standard restaurant samosas and the dough is not unlike restaurant
> samosa pastry. About 2 T of filling, and crimp them really well, or they
> try and come apart in the frying. Following suggestions from the
> Ni'matnama, I served them with lime juice. I heartily recommend the lime
> juice.
>
> I used the gyoza wrappers because I'd just discovered them hiding in the
> fridge, and decided I should use the darn things up. The resultant
> gyozamosa are edible, but the wrappers are too light and chewy at least for
> my taste. If you're doing Indian samosa for a feast and need to save time,
> I'd go with the empanada wrappers as the best compromise.
>
> Margaret
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-- 
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/