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.

Vegetable cakes - Chocolate Beetroot Brownie takes on Green Tomato Cake

Carrot cake is of course a given, but this year with my domestic goddess cap pulled firmly down on my forehead I am experimenting with other exciting sweet veggie cake options.

In the blue corner, the defending title holder, - Chocolate Beetroot Brownie, and the new contender for the title, in the red corner - Green Tomato Cake.

Chocolate Beetroot Brownie

Preheat the oven to 180°C, and in an oven dish place 250g of quality cooking chocolate, I use a mix of milk and dark patissiere chocolate, and 250g of unsalted diced butter.  Put the dish in the oven to melt the chocolate and butter rather than wasting energy using a double boiler on the hob.


Whisk together 3 eggs and 250g of sugar, add a teaspoon of vanilla extract then the melted gooey chocolate and stir together.

Add 300g of cooked beetroots after whizzing them into a puree in a food processor - you could grate them but it depends on how keen you are on pink fingers for days afterwards.

Into the mixture sift 100g of self raising flour, a pinch of salt and 25g of cocoa powder, fold a few times but don't over work as this can make your brownies a bit tough.

Then bake for 20 minutes, checking with a skewer before taking out of the oven (insert a skewer and it should come out clean without chocolatey goo on it when the cake is cooked).

Leave in the tin to cool fully before turning out onto a wire rack.

TOP TIP - leave the chocolatey mess lying around and little fingers come and clean it for you.

Green Tomato Cake

In a large mixing bowl beat together until smooth:

2 1/4 cups of sugar

1 cup veg oil

3 eggs

2 teaspoons of vanilla

Into the mixture sift:

3 cups of plain flour
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg (optional - I detest it so I don't use it but it was part of the original recipe)

Beat the mixture together creating a stiff cake dough.

Add:

1 cup of pecans or walnuts (I actually used almonds because the walnuts are not ready for picking yet)
1 cup raisins
2 1/2 cups of chopped green tomatoes

Pour the mixture into a greased cake tin - springform if you have one.

Sprinkle with a couple of tablespoons of dessicated coconut, and bake at 180°C for 1 hour.

Righto - off to tend to my green tomato and ham soup - recipe to follow......