101 ways with filo pastry

Lovely lamb fillet courtesy of our lamb Ernie last year

....not really 101 ways, but my favourite, samosas.

Filo pastry is very hard to find in our neck of the woods, in fact it is as rare as rocking horse doings, but yet again my lovely north African supermarket came to the rescue, and nestled in the back of their fridge there was a sole pack of filo.

So I grabbed it and ran from the shop, throwing a few coins at the poor bemused girl at the till on my way past, cackling and caressing the packet all the way. Err - may be a while before I am welcome there again.


Over the last few days as I have been cooking for an army again, I have been using the leftovers in samosa fillings, experimenting with various spice combinations to get a lovely curry flavour.

Here are a couple of my favourites:

Traditional Indian Lamb Samosa filling

500g of left over meat or fresh minced lamb
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic crushed
1teaspon curry powder
½ teaspon chilli powder
1 teasmon ground tumeric
½ teaspon gorund roasted cumin seeds
1 fresh chilli finaly diced
1 teaspoon fresh coriander or ½ teapsoon ground coriander
1 cm of fresh grated ginger
salt and ground pepper to taste
juice of half a lemon

Combine all the spices with the juice of the lemon to make a paste, fry the onion and garlic, add the meat and fry until cooked through if using raw meat, then stir through the paste.

Place a tablespoon of mixture onto the edge of your filo pastry strip and fold as per the photos above, always folding the long edge at right angles.

In an attempt to be slightly healthier, I don't fry my samosas but oven bake them, they only need 5 minutes each side at 220°C, but do remember to turn them otherwise you'll have one crisp side and one soggy side.

Alternative Veggie Samosa filling 


½ cup cooked green beans or peas or carrots or any other left over cooked veg
4 medium cooked potatoes
1 fresh green chilli
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon cumin
½ teaspoon garam masala
½ teaspoon ground coriander
handful of raisins
handful of sliced almonds


and if you have it
½ teaspoon dried mango powder


In a bowl, combine all the ingredients together then fold as above, and oven bake as above.




None of the snow from yesterday has stuck, but it has just started snowing again, looks like a peaceful afternoon of cross stitch for me, and hopefully I can get my second knitted hat finished today.