Sweet Potato Samosa Pot Pie

I have been dreaming about making this dish ever since the thought of it popped into my brain.  Originally the idea was just for a Samosa Pot Pie: all of the ingredients of a Samosa in a Pot Pie form; which I've learned from Google is not an original idea.  The recipe changed at the last minute after I harvested a bunch of sweet potatoes from my garden and thought "What if instead of

regular white potatoes...."  I must say that the experiment was a success in flavor and form (although the crust definitely looks stoner-constructed).

If you're not a fan of sweet potatoes, this may be the recipe to change you over.  The curry flavor transforms the sweet potatoes into a very different taste bud experience.  If you're still not convinced, you can substitute the recipe with regular white potatoes.  

Having never made traditional somosas before in my life (see Cheeseburger Samosas), I found this Samosa Recipe website very helpful in my endeavor.

Ingredients

1 pie crust

1 sheet puff pastry

5  sweet potatoes, medium-large

2 cup vegetable broth

1 1/2 cups sweet peas, frozen or fresh

1 medium onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, chopped

1 1/2 tbsp ghee or butter

1 cup cashews, roasted

2 tbsp Madras Curry Powder

1 tsp cayenne pepper

Directions

First, pierce sweet potatoes with a fork and place in an oven @ 375 F for approx 45 minutes, or until thoroughly cooked.  Remove sweet potatoes from oven (but leave the oven on...you'll need it later!)  Let the potatoes cool ~10 minutes and then mash them in a medium bowl.  Place vegetable broth in a sauce pan and heat to medium heat.  Melt ghee or butter in a large skillet or pot.  Sauté onions and garlic in melted ghee/butter for 5 minutes.  Add mashed sweet potatoes and 1 cup of vegetable broth to the onions and garlic.  Stir.  Add curry powder and cayenne pepper to mixture and continue to stir.  When all of the liquid is absorbed, add the rest of the broth and the sweet peas, raisins and cashews.  Continue to stir until broth has been absorbed.  Taste and add salt if you need to.  For me the saltiness of the vegetable broth I used was plenty, but everyone's different.

Ok.  Now you can place the mixture in your pie crust.  If you wanna, you can make your own, but I used a frozen pre-made crust to simplify the procedure.  Load it up high.  The mixture should rise above the sides of the crust.   Next, roll out your puff pastry and cut into a circle and plop on top of the pie.  Pinch it to the edge if you can or just let it ride on top if you want.  Place in the oven for about 30 minutes, or until crust turns a golden brown and you can't stand the enticing aroma any longer.  Let sit for about 5 minutes before slicing and serving.  Leftover pie tastes awesome too and there should be plenty unless you're feeding an army.

Cheeseburger Samosas

"This is the greatest food moment of my entire life."- Friend and fellow stoner chef.

So, this idea popped up a few months ago between me and a friend as we  partook of some herb and brainstormed some "What if..." recipes ideas.  Last Friday we piled up the ingredients and set out to create one of the ultimate stoner meals ever made.  Now, we were going to make real cheeseburger samosas and vegetarian cheeseburger samosas, but we couldn't get our hands on any meat  So...we got some fake Gimme Lean veggie sausage instead- a rich and satisfying substitute, although an entirely different creature all together.  This can be oz for oz substituted for ground hamburger meat.    

Ingredients:

1 14 oz package Gimme Lean ground sausage  or 14 oz ground beef

3 tablespoons butter

1/2 onion, diced

5 cloves garlic, minced

1 medium tomato, diced

3 banana peppers, diced

3 takeaway packets of Krystal's yellow mustard

1/2 cups chow-chow (or relish)

1 sheet puff pastry

8 oz of medium or sharp cheddar cheese

1/4 bottle brown ale (your favorite, or whatever beer you have in your hand)

Condiments

Mayonnaise

Curry paste

Tomato chutney

salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 375 F.  Place butter in a large frying pan at medium heat.  When the butter melts, add onions and stir for 3 minutes.  Add garlic and banana peppers.  Stir for  5 minutes.   Add tomatoes and continue to stir for 5 minutes.  Then add the sausage.  Break up the sausage and mix in with the veggies. Add mustard, chow chow and beer at this time.

   

Let simmer until no liquid is left in the pan.  Stir occasionally.  While this is cooking, roll out the defrosted puff pastry (we forgot to defrost it so we had to massage it for about 15 minutes before it was workable), and cut and X into to create 4 triangles.  Each triangle will be one individual samosa.  Place cheddar cheese on the puff pastry in Tetris shapes.

Then lump about 1/2 -3/4 cup of the ground Gimme Lean sausage, veggies and random

 condiments mixture on top of the cheese and add more cheese to the top.  Fold up the 3 corners of the triangle and twist dough at the top.  Pinch together the sides of the dough to enclose the filling as completely as possible.  Place on parchment paper on a flat baking pan and bake in oven for approximately 15-20 minutes or until dough becomes a crispy golden brown.  

While the samosas are cooking, you can whip up some condiments to serve them with.  We mixed 2 parts Mayonaise with 1 part Curry Paste to create a curry mayo, and purchased some tomato chutney from the local Indian food store (ketchup and mayo!)

Serve and eat as you will.