Next semester, I am leaving the snowy winter wonderland of Connecticut to embark on a trip across the world to the homeland of arguably some of the tastiest food in the world: India. It is the original spice trade homeland, birthplace of chicken masala and saag paneer, and the creator of the samosa. Rather than abandon the Argus, I will be serving as your honorary food correspondent, writing in from Jaipur, India—located about four hours south of New Delhi. I will send you recipes that will blow the spicy out of Tandoor and leave you craving Havelis. I will send you pictures of curries that will make your tongue tingle and of yogurt Shrikhand to cool you back down. For my last recipe of the semester I wanted to begin experimenting with the food that I will be eating for the next five months.

When it was ordered that this week’s food section be Christmas themed, I thought it would be difficult to connect a recipe to my upcoming trip. But Christianity is India’s third largest practiced religion, with 24 million followers (about 2.3 percent of the country’s population), so I was able to rustle up some classic Indian Christmas recipes online.

Yet, in the throws of finals and papers due at midnight, I was not able to actually try this recipe. I have included a recipe for Christmas Kulkuls (found on indianfood.about.com), in addition to a tried-and-true recipe for samosas that I made with my sister last year. The samosas are a truly delicious recipe that, if I were a full-time cook for my program house, I would make daily. So enjoy your first Indian dinner and dessert from me!

Kulkuls

Ingredients

3.5 cups Flour

4 tsp powdered sugar

1 Egg

Milk (room temperature)

1 tsp butter

1/2 tsp of baking powder

Oil for frying

1 cup sugar

4 tbsp water

1)   Mix the flour and the baking powder. Add the butter a little at a time and mix gently.

2)   Beat the eggs separately and add them to the flour-butter mixture. Add the powdered sugar and coconut milk and mix with fingers until it’s a nice consistency.

3)   Role the dough into marble-sized balls.

4)   Grease the back of a fork with some oil. Shaping the kulkul is an art, but not too difficult. It is soft and pliable, and you need to work quickly to shape the entire batch of dough.

5)   Flatten and press a ball of dough onto the prongs and then roll the dough off the fork into a tight curl. Cover the dough you are not using with a wet cloth so it does not harden. Finish the entire batch.

6)   Heat the oil in a deep pan on medium-high. When the oil is hot, fry the kulkuls, turning them often, until they are golden brown. Place them on paper towels to drain.

7)   Heat up the sugar with a little water until the sugar melts into a syrup. Quickly put all of the fried kulkuls in the pan and make sure they are coated evenly.

8)   Spread them out on a plate to cool.

9)   Eat on Christmas day!

Samosas

Filling

Heat in a skillet:

– 1 tbsp vegetable oil

– pinch of ginger

– 1/2 tsp cumin/mustard mix

When seeds pop, add:

–       1 med onion, chopped finely

–       1 tbsp fresh cilantro chopped

Sauté until the onion becomes translucent, then add:

–       1/2 tbsp lemon juice

–       1 tsp cumin

–       1/2 tsp salt

–       a pinch of red hot pepper powder

Sauté for a few minutes and then add:

–       3 medium tomatoes, already cut and boiled until soft

–       1/4 cup of frozen peas

Mix well and sauté until heated, then remove from the heat and set aside.

Dough

Mix in a bowl:

–       2 cups of white flour

–       2 ½ tbsp vegetable oil

–       1 ½ tbsp rice flour (this can be regular flour if you don’t have any)

–       ½ tsp salt

Add water gradually (1/4 cup at a time) until dough holds together and kneads well. Roll into a ball and cover with a moist cloth. Let it sit for 20 minutes.

Constructing the Samosas

Break off 1.5-2 inch pieces of the dough and roll into 6-8 inch diameter circles. Cut each circle in half and fold each half circle into thirds to make a pie wedge shape. Seal the point by pressing or pinching. Pick up the dough and seal the outside edge. Fill the cone with samosa filling. Pinch to seal. Cover with a moist cloth until ready to fry.

Fry

Put the samosas in a deep pan with hot oil and flip them over until they are golden brown on both sides. Let them cool on paper towels.