Xperience Hyderabadi Irani Samosa & Chai

Blogging Marathon# 32: Letter X
Theme: A-Z Vegetarian Dishes of Andhra Pradesh
Dish: Xperience Hyderabadi Irani Samosa & Chai

For letter X, I was thinking of (e)xperimenting with a new ingredient or a new dish. But as I mentioned in my previous post, it has been a busy month and by the time I started to think of what to make that would fit the Andhra dishes theme, I drew a complete blank. My mom suggested couple of traditional Andhra dishes that we could try, but as luck might have it, we didn't have enough time to make them.

As I was thinking of different words that start with 'X', I stumbled on (e)Xperience and then I thought of Hyderabadi Irani Samosa & Chai experience. The main reason for me to associate (e)xperience with tea is my 1 year old daughter. Recently she started saying 'aaaaahhh' everytime she drinks something, be it her milk or water. I guess she saw one of us say it when we drink our morning coffee/ milk. It looked so cute to me that she's really enjoying the experience of drinking. And that is how I thought of doing Hyderabadi Irani Chai & Samosa.

Hyderabad is famous for its Irani cafes that are scattered all around the city and mainly in the old city. People sipping hot, milky Irani Chai, munching on crispy, crunchy onion Irani Samosa and gossiping with friends is a very common site at these cafes.

I tried to recreate both the dishes at home for my guests. Since both my husband and I are not big Tea drinkers, I make it only when we have company. So last weekend when I had my cousin's family coming over in the evening, I knew what I wanted to make for snacks. I actually ended up drinking a cup of tea myself, just to see how it tasted :-)
Irani Samosa recipe is from VahrehVah Chef. Crust is a combo of atta (wholewheat flour) and maida (all-purpose flour). Crust is partially cooked before making, filling and deep frying the cones. Filling consists of raw onions and poha (flattened rice flakes) and the reason for using poha is to absorb the moisture from the onions. Also these samosas need to be fried twice to get their characteristic crispy shell.
I was in a hurry to take pictures before the guests arrived and more importantly before the sun went down, so my first batch of samosas turned out to be darker than what I wanted them to be. My mom fried the next batch and she got beautiful golden samosas. But too bad, it got too dark to take pictures and we all ate them up.

Irani Samosa:

Ingredients:
For the Crust:
Atta (wholewheat flour) - 1cup
Maida (all-purpose flour) - 1cup
Oil/ ghee - 2tbsp
Salt - to taste

For the filling:
Onion - 1 large, thinly sliced
Poha (flattened rice flakes) - 1cup
Red chili powder - 1tsp (or more to taste)
Ground cumin - ½tsp
Chaat masala - ½tsp
Green chilies - 2, finely chopped
Cilantro - 3tbsp, finely chopped
Salt - to taste

Method:

• Make the Crust: Combine all the ingredients for the crust in a mixing bowl. Add enough water and form it into a stiff but pliable dough (almost similar to puri dough). Cover and set aside for 30 minutes.
• Make the filling: Combine all the ingredients for the filling in a mixing bowl. Set aside until ready to use.
• Divide the dough into lemon size balls. Roll each ball out into very thin circular discs, use flour to dust the surface for easy rolling. Cut the edges off of the circle to form a square, then divide the square into two to form 2 rectangular sheets. Sprinkle flour on the sheets and stack the rest of the sheets
• Heat a tawa/ griddle and cook the sheets for just 15-20 seconds. The goal here is to stiffen the dough just a little bit and not to cook the dough completely. Stack the partially cooked sheets on a plate.
• Make a paste with 2tbsp all-purpose flour and water in a small bowl.
• Form a cone with cooked sheet and wet the edges with the flour paste. Add 1tbsp of filling and seal the edges with more flour paste. Repeat with rest of the sheets.
• Heat oil or deep frying; gently add the prepared samosas and fry until lightly browned. Remove onto paper towel lined plate. After partially frying all of the samosas, repeat the frying process to get the crispy & crunchy exterior that is typical for Irani Samosas.
• Serve piping hot with ketchup or green chutney.

Irani Chai/ Tea:

Let me start by saying that this is not an authentic recipe for Hyderabadi Irani Chai. I googled and searched for the recipe, but the recipes I found were too time consuming. I made up my own recipe :-)

Irani chai is milky and sweet, one recipe I found had condensed milk or khoya in(!!) I didn't want to take a risk adding these unusal chai ingredients, so kept it simple. Here's how I made it:

Ingredients: Serves 2~3

Milk - 2cups

Sugar - 2~3tsp (or as per taste)

Tea leaves - 2tsp

Ground Cardamom - ½tsp

Method:

• Add tea and sugar to 1 cup of water and bring to a slow simmer. Simmer this mixture for 10~15minutes. Add ground cardamom and simmer for 5 more minutes.
• Add milk to the tea decoction and let the mixture come to a slow boil. Simmer until the milk thickens a little bit.
• Strain into individual glasses and serve piping hot.

Logo courtesy : Preeti
Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM# 32.

Previously on A-Z Vegetarian Dishes of Andhra Pradesh:
A for Aava Pettina Aratikaya Kura
B for Bagara Baingan
C for Chimmiri
D for Dosakaya Pachadi
E for Erra Gummadikaya Pulusu
F for Firni
G for Gongura Pulihora
H for Haleem/ Vegetarian Haleem
I for Iguru/ Vankaya-Senagapappu Iguru
J for Jonna Pindi Kudumulu

K for Kakarakaya Podi Kura
L for Lauju/ Laskora (Kobbari Lauju)
M for Menthi kura Pappu
N for Nuvvulu-Mamidikaya Pachadi
O for Onion Pachadi
P for Pindi Miriyam
Q for Qabooli Biryani
R for Ragi-Barley Sankati
S for Sheer Qurma
T for Thelega Pindi Kura
U for Upma-Pesarattu
V for Veg Dum Biryani
W for Wadiyala Pulusu