Samosas - 3

Filling: Cook potatoes until tender. Cut into small pieces and partly mash -- some larger pieces should remain - about a rounded cup of potatoes makes 10 samosas. Grind all spices coarsely except asafoetida and salt. Grind pomegranate seeds fine. Heat oil, fry asafoetida, add ground spices and salt, fry for some time, add potatoes. Fry till the mixture is dry, add the pomegranate paste. Fry till even drier. Let cool.

Mix the ingredients. Knead about 5 minutes. The dough should be soft, elastic, not sticky. It should barely stick to the fingers, but release easily. Mold the dough into walnut-sized balls, roll out like chappati. Rub oil on top of the chappati, sprinkle with flour. Roll out another chappati and stack it on the first. Continue until 5 chappatis are stacked. Heat a heavy griddle on a low flame. Gently roll all 5 chappatis together, so that they become larger and flatter, but layers can still be seen. Put the stack on the griddle, cook till slightly tan color on low heat - don't flip. Remove, cut the edges to make a big square. Cut the square to make 2 rectangles, carefully separate the layers. (broken bits and edges can be deep-fried as a snack.)

Put some water in a cup, sprinkle white flour over it and make a paste. Form rectangles of dough into a cone. Fill with the potato mixture, seal with the paste, deep fry. (To test whether the oil is hot enough, first drop bits of dough into the hot oil -- if they rise and foam, the oil is ready.