Samosas and its history

Come festival, family gathering, wedding season or a simple tea time snack, Samosas have never failed to impress people in its taste, flavor, texture, and its mere existence. How many times have you found yourself stretching for a samosa simply because it was left on the coffee table ignoring the fact that you had no interest in eating anything just five minutes back? This my friend is the divine attribute of samosas, ‘tempting people where ever they are’ ever since its inception. We at Specialfoodz have endeavored to explain to all you lovely people, lovers of samosas, everything you need to know about samosas. So here goes…

The origins of the triangular treat.

You might be a little disappointed here because as much as you would have wished for samosas to have been a creation that originated from the Indian Subcontinent or South Asia, it is not true. Claims have been made where people have pointed out to the Middle East as being the place of origin of samosas, well before the tenth century A.D. They are called sambosa in the Middle East. An Iranian historian who goes by the name Abolfazl Beyhaqi is known to be the first man, who has mentioned in his work Tarikh-e-Beyhaghi.

How did it land up in India, you might ask? It is known that traders from Central Asia introduced it to the Indian Subcontinent in the 13th or 14th century. It traveled far and wide to reach India. You can trace its routes from Egypt to Libya and from there to Central Asia and finally to India. Formally known as Samsa, named after the pyramids of Central Asia, there are other historical accounts that refer to it as sanbusak, or sanbusaj. It was introduced to South East Asia by Middle Eastern Chefs during the rule of the Delhi Sultanate but as we mentioned earlier other accounts thank the traders for its introduction.

How famous are samosas?

Today, samosas are known all over the world due to its unique shape, flavor, the various ways that you can make it delicious and palatable and the many alternative ingredients that one could add to it. In Kazakhstan, Samosas have a thicker crust, is baked and has a different sort of filling where they could add either pumpkin or meat, minced lamb and onion. Another variant of the samosa is the Hyderabadi luqmi, which has a meat filling, a very crusty feel to it as compared to the rest of India and Pakistan. The story of the samosa is quite different in the Middle East. It is first off, semi-circular in shape and is stuffed with chopped onions, minced chicken, feta cheese, meat, spinach, and mashed chickpeas if it is a part of Jewish cuisine.

What about us?

No matter its origins, we Indians have definitely popularized it far more than anybody else could confess to have done. This savory is for us the essence of what is a deep fried delight. With its twisted triangular layers made out of corn flour, deep fried in piping hot oil, that has a filling consisting of either mashed potato, chilli powder, coriander leaves, cumin seeds, and a few other spices along with onion in its basic forms, we are known to take it to the extreme by stuffing the samosas with the meat of chicken, mutton, beef, all kinds of spices and finish it off with two differently abled chutneys. One for the spicy effect (the green chutney), and one to render the mouth sweet and happy (the red chutney). So what do you say, folks? Up for a samosa yet? We say, don’t waste a minute more and go find your kind of samosa.