Food You Can Eat: Lazy Samosas and Paneer Tikka Masala

2/12/20 BigDamnHeroes 28

I will start by saying neither of these will be particularly authentic Indian recipes. Then again, tikka masala is probably a British invention anyway – the exact origin is disputed, but the most common story is that it was invented by South Asian immigrants in the UK, and it was the merging of an Indian tikka with a tomato soup.

I decided to post these recipes together, though I don’t usually make them at the same time. But every once in a while, it’s nice to feel like we’ve gone out for Indian food and overindulged.

Both recipes are medium-ish spicy. They both seem relatively mild at first, but the spice builds as you keep eating. Adjust the spice level according to your taste.

Lazy Samosas

It may not look like a samosa, but it tastes like one.

I don’t mess with pastry. Too time consuming. I have a three year old who is often wailing for my attention the whole time I’m cooking, so I like recipes to be quick and easy. So this recipe uses a tortilla instead of pastry.

  • 4 8-inch flour tortillas
  • 1 russet potato
  • 1 cup peas
  • ⅓ cup chopped onions 
  • 1 ½ tsp curry powder
  • ½ tbsp garlic, minced
  • 1 tsp ginger
  • ½ tsp garam masala 
  • 1 minced dried serrano pepper
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 2 tbsp ghee/oil 
  • salt & pepper
  • neutral oil

Preheat oven to 425. Peel potato and cut into roughly 1-inch cubes. Put in a pot with a good pinch of salt and cover with about an inch of water. Bring to a boil and cook until tender, about 7 minutes. Drain and set aside.

Meanwhile, heat ghee over medium low. (Or if you want less dishes, finish the potatoes and set them aside to use the same pot.) Add onions and cook until softened. Add garlic, ginger, and spices, and cook for a minute or two until fragrant. Add potatoes and peas and stir for a couple minutes. Remove from heat and add salt, pepper, and lemon juice. Coarsely mash with a masher or fork. Taste and adjust seasoning if needed.

Split filling among the tortillas, and roll them up like burritos. Lightly oil a baking sheet (or use a silicone liner – I love mine) and put your samosa burritos on it, seam sides down. Brush sides and tops with oil. Bake at 425 until golden and crisp, about 10 minutes. Slice in half at an angle to serve.

If you’re fancy, make a tamarind or mint chutney to dip them in. I usually just thin out a little plain yogurt and season it with a little cumin, salt, and pepper, and sometimes a little chopped greenery like basil.

Paneer Tikka Masala

Ok so I’m obviously not a food stylist, but I swear this is delicious.

It was a revelation when I realized that there was a grocery store near me that sold packaged paneer. Supposedly it’s pretty easy to make your own, but as I said earlier, I don’t have time for that. You can also easily swap out the paneer to make the tikka masala vegan or meaty. I’ve done it with cubed extra firm tofu, and that’s also pretty good. Tikka masala typically just has the gravy and the protein, but I also sometimes like to add in some peas at the same time as the paneer, as I did in the pictures here.

I got this recipe from Love & Good Stuff and have adapted it only slightly.

  • 1 package paneer, cut into ½ inch cubes
  • 2 tbsp ghee/oil
  • 1 onion (finely diced)
  • 2 cloves minced garlic
  • 2 tsp minced fresh ginger
  • 1 ½ tsp garam masala
  • 1 tsp cumin
  • ½ tsp turmeric powder
  • ½ tsp ground coriander
  • ½ tsp paprika
  • 1 tsp chili powder (mine is pretty spicy chili from an Indian grocery)
  • 1 cup tomato passata (I usually can’t find this at the store and use tomato puree instead)
  • salt
  • 1 can (13.5 oz) coconut milk
  • Optional: any other veggies you want to throw in, like peas

Heat the ghee in a large pot over medium low heat. Add onions and cook until softened. Add garlic, ginger, and spices, and cook for a minute or two until fragrant.

Add the tomato puree and mix everything together well. Allow the sauce to cook for 10 minutes or until the tomato sauce reduces and thickens into a bit of a paste.

Add salt to taste, stir in the coconut milk, and add the paneer (and the peas if you want to add them). Bring the pot up to a boil, then reduce it to low and allow the curry to simmer for another 10 minutes or so for the flavors to blend. Serve over rice and/or with naan. (I use store-bought naan, obviously.)

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28 Comments

  1. And I should add – I was recently reminded that the leftovers get spicier. Supposedly this is a thing particularly whenever dried or powdered spice is used (vs fresh chiles), because the longer it sits, the more the spice hydrates and disperses. 

  4. Thank you for your awesome inaugural FYCE post, @BigDamnHeroes! That looks delicious and like something I could do – I am easily intimidated by South Asian cuisine (zero experience cooking it.) Plus, the vegetarian recipes are greatly appreciated!

  7. This recipe looks great and reminds me that it has been ages since I’ve had Indian food. I really should start making my own, if I can collect the spices. I even have Madhur Jaffrey’s “An Invitation to Indian Cooking” but I’ve never made anything from it. Have you? It’s the spices that are my hangup. Each recipe seems to require at least 10, in very small amounts, and I don’t know enough about the cuisine to know where I could cut corners and double one to make up for the absence of the other. 
     
    Oh well, Santa has hinted that he might be very generous this year (God bless those year-end bonuses Santa gets) so I may have to spend some of my ill-gotten gains at Penzies. I’ve never ordered from them and when I went back in May or June they were out of lots of things (pandemic shut-ins discovering their inner Food Network Celebrity) but maybe the supplies are flowing freely once again.

    • I don’t generally like cookbooks actually. I enjoy browsing the posts here for ideas, and r/vegetarian too, but most of the time, I have an idea of what I want to eat and then Google to find a recipe. I think cookbooks feel somewhat restrictive to me?
       
      I hear you about the tons of spices being intimidating. Spice blends are a good cheat – I find that if you have a good garam masala and a good curry powder, that gets you pretty far. Coriander, cumin, and chilli are the others I think I use most often with Indian food. And I’ve definitely made recipes where I just leave out the couple of spices I don’t have – you won’t get the same depth of flavor, but usually still something tasty. 

      • My plain old grocery store sells a few Indian sauces in jars like Tikka Masala which are decent for quick dinners. Adjust with hot sauce, maybe a bit more garlic and cumin or nothing at all and you’re good to go.

        • Same, but I never seem to like the pre-made jar sauces. I assume there are decent ones out there, but the ones I’ve tried taste off. I think they’re often too sweet? 

      • I LOVE Bill’s Emails, and I ADORE their spices!
         
        It’s both a blessing AND a curse, living within walking distance of a Penzey’s store😉
         
        The ONLY good thing about Covid, is the fact that, since they only do contact-less pickup, I can’t go spend ALLLLL my monies over there😉
         
        But I can TELL you, that after stocking the spices at the grocery store, Penzey’s is HANDS-DOWN both higher quality than the stuff you’ll find in a regular grocery store, AND a better value for what you’re getting.
         
        One example is the peppercorn blend (the 4-color one). I made the mistake a couple years ago, of getting a 4-color blend at a store out near where I lived in the exurb–because I was out of it, and the cost was a good deal cheaper…
         
        When I restocked from Penzey’s, after running really low on that cheaper batch, I realized WHY the Penzey’s blend was so much more expensive….
        The Penzey’s peppercorns were at least DOUBLE the size of the peppercorns in that cheaper blend!😲😳🤯

    • Ha!!!
      Cousin Matthew, I got to this part of your post, “It’s the spices that are my hangup.” And thought, “PENZEY’S, he needs Penzey’s!”
      And then CRACKED up, later on, of course!😉😆😂💖
       
      Off the top of my head, the “Now Curry,” the hot curry, their cumin, some garam masala, (could be theirs), the toasted granulated onion (if you’re like me, you’ll use it ALL the time!😉😁💖), the roasted granulated garlic (this is used all the time, too!), their Bay Leaves, and the Smoked Spanish Paprika.
      If you can, the Berebere is AWESOME, too. African more than Asian, but GOOD, and really useful to add a bit of heat and flavor in things.
      And their white cardamom pods are amazing, too, if you have a use for cardamom.
      Unrelated to Indian, but the Fox Point Seasoning is really tasty if you like oniony/scalliony/shalloty/chivey-type flavors… and the air-dried shallots are EXCELLENT, if you’re like me, and always aeem to forget to use up shallots before they either dessicate or go mushy! 

      • I recently got some berbere (from Amazon, zamouri spices) and started playing at making some Ethiopian food. I need to dial in the recipes some more, but maybe I’ll post that for a future FYCE. It satisfies the Ethiopian craving somewhat, but it’s definitely lacking without the injeera.
         
        I’ve never heard of penzeys. I looked it up and I guess there’s one 40 minutes from me. 

    • Yay! Happy to be a source of veg* recipes 🙂 
       
      While my husband and I are lacto ovo vegetarians, I do cook vegan fairly often because he’s lactose intolerant. Though I have also become pretty well versed in the lactose content of varying types of dairy (no or low lactose in ghee, some kefir, hard aged cheeses…). 

  9. oh shit….i forgot to comment
    ill be trying this one
    i mean..im a fan of lazy…and samosas….and i fucking love a good curry
    and its veggi…so i dont have to arse about with the recipe to get the others to eat it
    its perfect 🙂
    *replaces peas with chopped runner beans*
    *and mushrooms*
    fuck im arsing about with the recipe again

      • lol same as…tho for me its usually trying to meatfree meat dishes (its an interesting challenge at times)
        thats nothing to do with the peas tho…. i just dislike those evil green fork resisting bastards

  10. i hate the fact they are fork resistant more than their taste…lol
    i hate food that rolls off my fork
    (but they also may be a thing i had to eat too often growing up….same reason i dont eat fruit nowadays)
    (HA! cant make me now mum!)
    (i dont even dislike fruit….i just dont eat it)

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