The delicious taste of samosas in a bowl


Allow me to introduce to you one of my new favorite dishes. I’ve made this three times already and while working on this post right now, I’m shocked I didn’t make it a forth time (thank you, fasting)! When I lived in London, I did a summer internship with PETA Europe. They covered my lunch expenses and one of the requirements was that I eat only vegan food on my lunch break. I was still a vegetarian at the time so I wasn’t quite knowledgeable about how many great vegan food choices were available to me, especially in London. Now that I think about it, the food I discovered during my internship is one of the best things I learned! Falafel, hummus, and samosas became a part of my diet. Have you ever had a samosa, my friend? They are so good! I was reminded of my love for samosas not too long ago and started looking for a recipe. I came upon this delicious recipe from VegWeb and am sharing it with you today. It tastes just like the filling of the samosas I remember and is full of healthy and tasty goodies. Plus, having made this recipe, I now know just how important and diverse spices can be and will definitely be experimenting in the future.

Feel free to follow the original recipe if you’d like. Here’s how I made my samosa quinoa bowl.

Ingredients:

1 medium potato
1 carrot (optional)
1 small onion
2 garlic cloves
1 cup quinoa
2.5 teaspoons ground cumin (aka caraway)
2 teaspoons cumin seeds (aka caraway seeds)
Pinch cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon sesame seeds
Pinch sea salt
1/3 cup green peas
1/2 teaspoon kurkuma
olive oil

Preheat oven to 400°F/200°C. Peel and cube potato (and carrot). Pour olive oil or coconut oil on a small baking pan, place the potato and carrot on the pan, and put into the oven. While the potato is baking, chop the onion and garlic cloves. Fry these on a frying pan with olive oil (be careful not to burn, I did the last time and definitely don’t recommend it!). Rinse one cup of quinoa and place into a medium sized pot of water (this will be the pot that you mix everything into). Follow the cooking instructions (my quinoa usually cooks for about 15 minutes). Once the potato (and carrot) has baked and starts turning brown, remove it from the oven and place it, along with the remaining oil, into the onions and garlic. Add in all of the spices except for kurkuma and mix. When all of the water has evaporated from the quinoa, place the onion/potato mixture into the pot with quinoa and stir. Add in the salt, kurkuma, and peas. Place a lid over the pot for a few minutes. If there isn’t too much oil, drizzle a bit of olive oil over the contents of the pot and stir. Put it into a bowl and enjoy!

This dish is easy to modify so that it tastes just right for you. Some of the spices may be too strong or too mellow depending on your taste buds so I suggest experimenting as I’m sure to do each time I make this! If you make it, please do tell me how it turns out and what changes you made!

Comments

mary [ life inspired ]
6 May 2011 - 5:21 pm

this is wonderful, I’ll definitely have to try it {and i love how you put the ingredients together like that}!

what a great exercise in eating vegan! I tried to challenge myself for a vegan week, and I confess I love cheese so much that it was very challenging- but so great to be able to think out of the box and discover new foods!

have a great weekend, my dear!

Leslie *Fresh Out of Lemons*
6 May 2011 - 5:40 pm

I’m always looking for quinoa recipes to add more of the “super-food” to my diet! This looks delicious. I love a recipe that uses not just salt and pepper spices!

Gloria
6 May 2011 - 6:05 pm

i LOVE samosas – this looks amazing! although i don’t know if i’d be able to resist wrapping this in some not-so-healthy puff pastry…hehe

Krystal/Village
6 May 2011 - 6:05 pm

you put this together so beautifully! I might have to try it!

Mary @ Delightful Bitefuls
10 May 2011 - 5:12 pm

This looks delicious! Great post!

New to your blog; happy I found you!

Mary xo
Delightful Bitefuls





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