Onion Samosa | Theatre Samosa | Tea Kadai Samosa | Patti Samosa

Posted on Jul 22nd, 2020

by Sowmya Venkatachalam

Categories:

4.50 from 6 votes

Onion Samosa, a crispy and spicy treat for a nice evening along with hot tea/coffee! Instead of conventional potato masala as filing, this samosa uses raw sliced onions, along with green chili, spice powders, salt and coriander leaves. These raw onions gets cooked when the samosas are deep fried and will be crunchy and tasty.

Prep Time 15

Cook Time 45

Resting Time 2

Total Time 3

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Reading Time: 8 minutes

Onion Samosa is a very popular South Indian Snack variety. Samosa is a popular Indian appetizer or snack usually served with tea / coffee for any parties. Samosa is a deep fried or baked pastry with a savory filling, such as spiced potatoes or onion. These are really crunchy and the filling makes us really tempting to have more samosas. Though potato based filling is more common type of samosa, still in Southern Indian onion based filling in samosa is very popular. I have already shared the recipe of Conventional Potato based Samosa. I have also shared another recipe of Onion Samosa where we don’t cook the sheets. Instead we make small thin roti, then cut into hemisphere and roll like a cone which is then stuffed with onion filling. But this method of making Samosa sheets is widely used in restaurants and theatre pantries.

Uniqueness of Onion Samosa:

The main uniqueness of this Onion Samosa is that the filling don’t need to be cooked. In the filling, sliced onions are mixed with Poha, Chili, salt and other spices. The main purpose to add Poha is to absorb the moisture that is released by onions when mixed with salt and spices. For the conventional Potato based filling, its a two step process. We need to boil the potatoes, and cook the potatoes with spices and then stuff the filling inside maida based cone. Though Onion samosa has also got 2 steps, but the filling step is quick and easy without cooking.

Usually the outer cover is made of maida but we could use equal measures of maida and wheat flour to make it little healthier. Maida based samosas are really crunchy. In TamilNadu, these Onion Samosas are so popular in all theatres and tea stalls. Theatre samosa are mini samosa with onion filling. Usually they put 2-3 mini samosa in a newspaper cone and garnish with sliced onions, chili and few coriander leaves! Click here for more crunchy and tasty Evening Snacks! Serve the Spicy and yummy Onion Samosa with Green chutney or Sweet Chutney!

Tips for Perfect Onion Samosas’

Choice of Dough: You can even get the ready made pastry sheet from the shop and cut into desired shape. But keep the pastry sheets covered in damp cloth so that they don’t get dried up.
For Filling, I have used raw onions, we can also saute the onions and use add it with other spices. We can also enrich with shredded cabbage and carrots,
The poha or flattened rice helps absorb any excess moisture from the filling as onions are prone to releasing their own moisture. This ensures that the samosas remain crispy for hours. If you do not have this, you could use dried breadcrumbs.
Seal the Samosa Completely using Maida Paste. If the edges are not sealed properly, the filling may come out while frying in hot oil.
Hotness of Oil is one of the key factor in getting crispy Samosa. If the oil is very hot, the sealing may break and filling may come out also the samosa will become dark brown but the filling might not be cooked properly. If the hotness of oil is too mild, more oil will be absorbed by the samosa.
Do not over crowd samosas while deep frying. Frying in medium flame is important, because samosa filling has to cook completely.

Recipe Card for Onion Samosa | Theatre Samosa | Tea Kadai Samosa | Patti Samosa:

INSTRUCTIONS WITH STEP BY STEP PICTURES:

PREPARE OUTER COVER DOUGH

Take a mixing bowl, add maida, salt, 1/2 tbsp oil and give a good mix.

Add water little by little and knead it to soft smooth dough. Again add 1/2 tbsp sesame oil and knead again for atleast 10 mins. Kneading makes the dough soft and after resting the dough will be nice and stretchy.

Cover the bowl and set aside. Let the dough rest for 2 hours.

PREPARE FILLING

After 2 hours, take another mixing bow, add sliced onions, chopped green chili, poha, red chili powder, coriander powder, garam masala, salt and chopped coriander leaves. Give everything a good mix.

Poha helps to absorb the moisure released from onions. Close the bowl with lid and set aside while we work with the dough.

PEPARE SAMOSA SHEETS

Knead the dough again for couple of minutes. Make big lemon size balls out of the dough.

Dust the dough balls with flour and roll each dough ball into very thin roti. Roll out so thin. No need to worry about shape. Rectangular shape is also perfect.

Once rolled out, place the rolled sheet on a hot tawa. Cook for 2 secs on the bottom side and then flip and cook on the other side for 2 secs. Do not over cook. Cooking for 2 secs makes the sheet little stiff helping us to shape a cone out of the sheet. If we over cook, the sheets become so rough making the samosa outercover to be hard.

Once cooked, take the sheets place on a chopping board. Cut the edges and slice it into rectangular sheets of 2″ wide. If the top and bottom edges are irregular cut it so that the rectangular sheets are perfectly shaped. We can either discard the cut pieces or we can deep fry till they are cripsy. They will taste like chips.

Repeat the step for the rest of the dough balls and make more rectangular sheets. Now our Samosa sheets are ready!

SHAPE AND FILL CONES

Take a small bowl, add 2 tbsp of maida. Add water little by little and make a smooth paste.

Take each rectangular samosa sheet. Make a cone out of the sheet. Refer the video for making cone (like we roll newspaper to fill in bhel or peanuts).

Place 2 teaspoon of filling inside the shaped cone. Next, take the maida paste and apply it to the corners. We need to close the cone and seal the edges. Maida paste helps to seal filling inside the cone.

Gently close the cone by bringing the edges and seal it. Make sure the samosa is completely sealed without any opening.

Repeat the steps and prepare the rest of the cones with filling. Now all our prepared samosa pieces are ready to get fried.

DEEP FRYING

Heat oil in a pan. When the oil is hot enough, gently drop 2-3 samosa pieces. Keep the flame in low to medium and allow the samosa to get fried for a minute.

Flip gently and cook on the other side till both the sides becomes golden brown and crispy. Take out the fried samosas and place on paper towel to drain excess oil. Repeat the same for rest of the prepared samosas.