Samosa-kopita

Last week, Seattle got slammed with snow. And when I say ‘slammed’, I actually mean only about 5 inches over a three day period. The University of Washington cancelled all classes on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and most of the city shut down. Seattle is known for not handling snow well–we don’t have the equipment to deal with snow and ice, and people who live here generally don’t know how to drive in snow (e.g., it’s typical for people to abandon their cars if the roads get slick). Having grown up in Pennsylvania, this is pretty funny considering that we would often get feet of snow and everything would operate as normal–not even a delayed opening for school! We had a good four days of being ‘snowed in’ last week, which meant a lot of time for cooking, schoolwork and watching TV. I was trying to just use the foods we had in the house and decided to make some samosas one afternoon. We had potatoes in the pantry and filo dough in the freezer. We didn’t have any peas, which would have been great, but I added them in the recipe below, anyway. I made the filling and then opened the defrosted filo dough, only to find it was all broken apart and dried out from being in the freezer too long (I have no idea when I bought it). Plans changed and I decided to make a spanakopita-style samosa dish. I pulled out a baking dish from the cupboard and layered broken pieces of the filo in the pan, brushing each layer with olive oil. Then layering in the potato filling with more filo dough. Hence the name ‘Samosa-kopita’.

The Recipe

Makes one 7×10″ baking dish, Serves 4-6.

4 cups diced potatoes

1 small onion, diced

1 tsp ground cumin

2 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp garam masala

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp curry powder

1/8-1/4 tsp ground red pepper (as desired)

1/4 nondairy milk

1/2 package of filo dough

1 cup frozen peas, defrosted and drained

salt and pepper to taste

Defrost the filo dough on the counter ahead of time. Preheat oven to 375 F. Boil the potatoes until soft. While potatoes are cooking, saute onion with a little olive oil in a large pan until soft. Add the spices and stir to combine.

Add a splash of water if the mixture is too dry and looks like it might burn. Turn off the heat. When the potatoes are soft, drain the water out of them and add the potatoes to the pan of onions and spices. Mash the potatoes and spice mixture together, and stir in the non-dairy milk and the peas. Taste the potato mixture and add salt and pepper as desired.

Drizzle a little olive oil in the bottom of a 7×10 baking dish, and start layering filo dough. After each layer, brush with olive oil. You can add a pinch of salt to the olive oil, if you like. After about 6 layers of filo, add half of the potato mixture, spreading it out evenly in the pan. Layer another 5 or 6 sheets of filo on top. Add the rest of the potato mixture and then more layers of filo on top. Bake at 375 F for 30 minutes or until nicely browned on top. Cut and serve. 

 What do you like to eat when you’re snowed in?