Recipe- Delicious Baked Cream Cheese & Chutney Samosa

These samosas are filled with cream cheese mixture flavored with chutney, green onions, jalapeño, raisins and cashews.

These make a great vegetarian appetizer for the holidays or just about any party! Diwali parties will be different this time, most will be limited to a few people.

But I am sure what will not be different is the food! Diwali is one time of the year which I wait all year long and it’s mostly for the food and all the festive vibe.

While we or may not have parties this time, but what I will definitely have is good food. That’s the best part about festivals right?

Ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour 260 grams
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ajwain
4 tablespoons oil 60 ml
7 tablespoons water 105 ml, or as needed to bind the dough
8 oz cream cheese softened at room temperature
4 tablespoons cilantro chutney
1/4 + 1/8 teaspoon salt adjust to taste
1/4 teaspoon black pepper adjust to taste
1/2 cup green onions finely chopped
1 tablespoon chopped jalapeño
1 tablespoon golden raisins
1.5 tablespoons broken cashews

Method

* To make the dough, to a large bowl add flour, salt and ajwain (carom seeds). Mix using a whisk. Then add 4 tablespoons of oil to the flour.

* Using your fingers rub the oil with the flour until the oil is well incorporated in all of the flour. Do this step for for 1-2 minutes since this is important. Once done, the mixture resembles crumbs.

* You know the dough has enough oil and is well incorporated when you press some dough between your palm and it holds up shape without breaking.

* Now, start adding water little by little and start bringing the dough together.

* Bring the dough together, you just need to bring the dough together here. There's no need to knead it and it won't be a smooth dough either (that is fine). I added around 7 tablespoons of water here.

* Now cover this dough with a damp cloth and rest for 30 to 40 minutes. I usually soak a paper towel in water and then squeeze out all the water and then cover my dough with that.

* Meanwhile work on the filling. Take room temperature softened cream cheese in a bowl and whisk it using a wire whisk or you can use your mixer as well. Then add 4 tablespoons of cilantro chutney to it and mix well.

* Add salt, pepper, chopped green onions, jalapeño, golden raisins, cashews and mix it all together. The filling is now done.

* Now, divide the dough into 8 equal parts, around 50 grams each. Meanwhile line a large baking sheet with aluminum foil and pre-heat oven to 375 F degrees.

* Take one portion of the dough and roll it to a round, meanwhile keep the remaining dough balls covered.

* Roll the dough ball into a circle of around 6 inch diameter and then cut it into two parts. Meanwhile mix some flour with water to form a thick paste like consistency, this will act as a glue to seal the samosa.

* Take one cut portion and apply water-flour paste on the straight edge/side.

* Now bring the two ends of the straight edge together and pinch them to form a cone. See picture for reference.

* Fill with around 2 teaspoons of the prepared cream cheese filling. Do not overfill.

* Now apply the water-flour glue around the circumference of the cone as you have to seal it and then pinch to seal.

* The samosa is now done, make all samosa regularly. You will get 16 samosas out of this since we divided the dough into 8 equal parts and made 2 samosas from each.
* Remember to keep the prepared samosa covered all time while you make all others. You don't want these to dry out.

* Once all samosas are done, spray the aluminum sheet with oil spray and then arrange all prepared samosa on it.
* Again spray the samosas with oil spray or brush them with oil if you don't have a spray.

* Bake at 375 F degrees for 45 to 50 minutes until golden in color. Serve these Cream Cheese & Chutney Samosa hot with cilantro chutney, sweet tamarind chutney or some hot sauce like sriracha.