It’s ironic the first samosa recipe I share on here is chicken because I prefer vegetable samosas to any other kind. That said, samosas are great snacks or appetisers and are surprisingly easy to make once you have the samosa pockets. I prefer making my own samosa pockets and I have an easy step by step on how you can make them too.
For these chicken samosas, I used boneless chicken breasts which sometimes can be bland. However, boneless chicken breasts offer a sort of blank canvas and can soak up whatever flavour or spices used. I settled on poaching the whole chicken breasts in water that had some aromatics.
My poaching liquid had smashed garlic cloves,smashed ginger, some fresh rosemary twigs, black peppercorns and salt.
As the chicken cooks, it will absorb the flavour from all the aromatics. It’s also ideal once the chicken is cooked to let it rest in the poaching liquid for about 10 minutes.
Once the chicken breasts have cooled a bit, slice then use a fork to shred into bite size pieces.
In a sufuria, heat some little oil then add the green onions and cumin seeds.
The green onions just need to be fragrant before adding the shredded chicken.
Stir to get everything combined. Taste for seasoning and adjust accordingly. If you can stand some heat, add in some sliced chillies.
Let the filling cool a bit before making the samosas.
Depending on the size of the pockets about one and half teaspoon of filling will do.
In a wide and deep frying pan, add the vegetable oil.
Let the oil heat up.
How do I know my oil is hot enough? Insert the handle of a wooden spoon in the oil and if bubbles steadily form around it then your oil is hot enough.
Fry up the samosas, depending on the size of your pan try, avoid crowding it. Crowding the pan lowers the temperature of the oil which isn’t good for deep frying.
Fry until golden brown then flip to fry the other side.
Repeat the procedure for all the samosas.
Remember the tip about adding lime juice to the dough for making the samosa pockets, well you’ll notice the samosas didn’t have those small air pockets.
I served the chicken samosas with some amazing sweet chilli sauce from African Kaya.
There you have it, delicious chicken samosas.
Chicken Samosas
- 2 boneless chicken breasts
- 2 fresh rosemary twigs
- 4 cloves of garlic, smashed
- 1 inch fresh ginger, smashed
- 5 black peppercorns
- Salt
- Water
- 1 cup chopped green onions
- 1 tablespoon cumin seeds
- 20 samosa pockets
- Vegetable oil for deep frying
Instructions
In a sufuria, add the boneless chicken breasts, rosemary twigs, garlic,ginger,black peppercorns ], salt and enough water to cover the chicken breast.
Let the liquid come to a boil then simmer for 30 minutes.
Once done,turn off the heat and let the chicken rest in the poaching liquid covered for 10 minutes.
Remove the chicken breasts and let them cool off.
Slice up the chicken then shred the slices with a fork to get bite size pieces.
In another sufuria, heat two tablespoons of oil.
Add the green onions and cumin seeds.
Cook until fragrant.
Add the shredded chicken and stir to combine.
Taste for seasoning and adjust accordingly then remove from heat.
Let the filling cool.
In a wide and deep pan, add a generous amount of vegetable oil.
Over medium heat, let the oil heat up.
As the oil is heating up, fill the samosa pockets with the chicken filling.
You know the oil is hot enough when you put the handle of a wooden spoon and bubbles steadily form around it.
Fry up the samosas, remember not to crowd the pan.
Fry until golden brown on both sides.
Serve with your favourite dipping sauce.
