National Samosa Week

National Samosa Week

5th National Samosa Week will be held in East Midlands city of Leicester, UK from April 5th to 11th, 2022. Leicester is among the areas with a large population of Indian-origin residents in the country.

Samosas, a popular street food, are savory fried or baked pastries filled with potatoes, peas, or lentils, and sometimes served with a mint sauce or chutney. It is said to have originated in Middle east and merchants from these areas used to travel over long distance. As per food historians, it had many names, such as sanbusak, sanbusaq or even sanbusaj. They all came from the Persian word, sanbosag.

It was introduced to the Indian subcontinent by the chefs in Delhi Sultanate rule. The triangular culinary reached the people of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. When people of these countries started to migrate, the samosa went along. UK have high population of Indians and it is obvious that they will celebrate their food, culture and heritage. The National Samosa Week has been launched in England’s Leicester city to create an awareness about South Asian food and culture.

If there can be events and days dedicated to pies, chocolates and cheese, why can’t we celebrate the lip-smacking samosa? The savoury dish has grown in popularity and for many people in the South Asian community, eating one is like the equivalent of having tea and cake.

Romail Gulzar, was the man behind the conceptualization of this food festival. The festival was organized by Leicester Curry Awards from April 9 to 13 with the aim to encourage everyone to try, taste and enjoy these savoury bundles of joy.

Six UK cities participated in first ‘National Samosa Week‘. All the participants prepared and sell the famous Indian breakfast samosa. The ‘National Samosa Week’ was organized for the first time to raise funds for charitable causes. Brits have long embraced Indian cuisine, in fact there has been surge of Indian restaurants on Deliveroo with cities such as Manchester, Bristol and Birmingham having the most orders from Indian restaurants.

It’s not the first time Brits have adapted an Indian favourite; the Balti was famously invented in 1960’s Birmingham and the Tikka Masala is believed to have Glaswegian origins.

Suggested Read: Samosa – A triangular Pastry Filled With Vegetables

Tips to make a Crispy-Crunchy Samosa

How to make Crispy samosa

  • While making pastry for samosa, always use butter or ghee in 1:6 ratio that means add 1 cup of ghee or butter to 6 cups of flour. Adding the butter to the flour is known as moyen. To get perfect flaky crust the secret lies in moyen. Correct amount of moyen is must.

  • It is very important to knead flour really hard and use as less water as much possible otherwise moisture will make the crust bubbly.

  • In the stuffing potatoes I have used are baking potatoes ,you can use any variety but make sure that potatoes don’t get totally mashed because we want them to in medium – sized chunks or something like crushed roughly with fingers.

  • Common recipe of samosa is made with potato filling. But you can also make it with paneer stuffing or simple peas stuffing. Or you can also add some chopped nuts and add it as a stuffing.

  • Frying the samosa needs patience. Never fry samosas in hot oil – that’s the golden rule. Samosas should be fried in warm oil. Always fry samosas in slow to medium warm oil. Is samosa are fried in hot oil then you would see small bubbles on the crust of samosa pastry.

  • They can be made Baked, Fried or Air-Fried depending on the method you like and all the versions are equally tasty.

  • You can either store it in the refrigerator for 3-5 days and reheat it in a microwave, or oven, or in an air fryer. Or you can store them in freezer-safe bags or containers and freeze them for 2-3 months.

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Simmi Kamboj

Simmi Kamboj is the Founder and Administrator of Ritiriwaz, your one-stop guide to Indian Culture and Tradition. She had a passion for writing about India's lifestyle, culture, tradition, travel, and is trying to cover all Indian Cultural aspects of Daily Life.