Small Town Samosas

The first samosa I ever ate was the one available in the school tuck-shop. I don’t think anybody then made samosas at home; at least my mother didn’t. I must have been in class 2. At that time the samosa was priced at an anna a piece (6 naya paise, 16 annas made a rupee). The day my mother did not have something substantial to pack in the tiffin box, she would press a four-anna coin in my palm to buy four samosas between me and my younger sister. By the time I left school a decade or so later, the samosa-wala had upped his price to 15 paise a piece, so a tiffin-less school-day meant an eight-anna coin (50 paise) for each of us. My mother did not miss how our faces lit up when samosa was on the recess menu. So she once asked me to get her one to taste. But a cold samosa smeared with chutney and fitted into a rectangular tiffin box was a limp, horrible-looking mess when I got it for her two hours later. She just made a face and chucked it into the garbage bin!

Freshly made samosas at the Guptaji shop!

But, back to school and I remember how we rushed to the tuck-shop as soon as the recess bell rang and became part of a completely undisciplined pushing-and-pulling hungry crowd at the counter that was totally unbecoming of any decent, propah convent education. The heady scent of recently fried hot samosas wafted from the canteen for quite a distance. There were several days when someone would come away angrily from that unruly crowding, the uniform sporting long brown stains of a dribbling chutney from somebody’s carelessly carried, hastily packed samosa order in newspaper sheets!

Today, the same samosa, made exactly the same way, of the same generous size as it was since the 1960s, with the same taste (including that of the brown imli chutney), by the same Guptaji family in their old shop in Fatehgunj’s Sadar Bazaar, costs Rs 15 per piece. And it is worth every piping hot bite of crunchy, mildly spiced potato and boiled dry peas filling mixed with tangy chutney deliciousness to send you straight into seventh heaven!

Almost 800 cals, but who’s counting when the dopamine levels have surged. No wonder there is always, always a crowd milling around that shop in that narrow lane, even in pouring rain or scorching sun!

The Shree Nasta Samosa

There was another samosa too, very popular when I was in college. While the Guptaji samosa would be a clean triangle, lying on its back, waiting for you to punch its middle with your finger to pour in the chutney, this one sat on its haunches like a fat pyramid, its spicy-tangy greenish-black masala potato mix with a crunch of variali put in the tempering, filled to the brim. It was first available at the sprawling Shree Nasta House near the Sagar Talkies along Raopura Road. The Nasta House was established by the elders of the present Surya Hotel family, when they first came to Baroda, and it offered a number of Rajasthani-Marwari savoury and sweet nasta of many kinds. But this samosa was a hot favourite. I discovered it when we went to early morning film shows sometimes organized by the Darshan Film Society either at the nearby Prince or Pratap Talkies, and wanted to have a bite on the way back home. It was a post-movie highlight. Fortunately, the family had also opened a teeny-weeny Kalyan café on the Sayaji Gunj main road, diagonally opposite the police station that offered the same samosas, the taste never ever changed. As that was close to the college and where I stayed, the indulgence was easy! However, now neither exist. Unfortunately. But the samosa does. Only available on pre-orders though at the Grand Mercure (Surya Palace) Hotel.

Then, of course, there were the Dairy Den samosas, at their ground floor outlet of the Alankar talkies. Very popular.  They introduced the new patti samosa and gave the regular samosas a run for their potatoes! These medium-sized samosas, crispy and crunchy because of the thin layers of several wraparound patti-s, were filled with a potato-onion spicy mix (another departure from the usual only potato or potato + peas filling) that went very well with the softy ice cream that Dairy Den also served. The Dairy Den owners (two brothers, I think) were NRIs and they ruled the roost for many years till the Alankar talkies building was sold off and they had to vacate the premises. About a decade or so back I ran into both brothers somewhere in Baroda and they talked about giving the franchisee/samosa recipe to someone in the city. But I don’t think that ever materialized.

Now, of course, the patti samosa expert in the city is Raju Samosa, near the Swami Samarth Chowk, opposite the Maharani School on the western edge of Sursagar. As is the trend these days, the range of samosas he offers (including frozen/non-fried ones) boggles the mind. Raju Samosa was even covered by popular You Tuber Kunal Vijayakar in his Khaane mein kya hain? food show. The last time I was there was with a group of 5-km walker-runners in the Vadodara Marathon last winter, when we veered off the straight and narrow to indulge in a quick breakfast of a couple of samosas and tapri chai!

The most well-known (and perhaps the oldest) samosa-wala in town is Manmohan. Their original ‘scratched-in-the-wall’ kind of shop still functions at the Kothi crossroads, where the samosas are prepared at the back of the shop and in a makeshift mezzanine floor. Since just before COVID, Manmohan spread its wings and now has several outlets across the city. These samosas are popular because they are large and the filling is quite spicy. So they are often a substitute for a meal in itself – breakfast or lunch. On one of our Heritage Food Walks with Adil Marawala during the Vadodara People’s Heritage Week, I found that many years back, the elderly owner of Manmohan, large-heartedly, volunteered to teach the inmates of the Baroda Central Jail how to make the Samosas and Dal Wadas (along with all the secret magic masala!) so that when their sentence was over, they would be equipped with a skill that could help them earn an honest living. To make sure that those inmates who were interested in learning would continue to practice the skill till they were free to go home, the Jail authorities started a Dal Wada outlet which turned out to be very popular for many years.

Then there are the small freshly fried mutton kheema samosas sold on hand-carts in the evenings during the month of Ramzan in the walled city areas,  and in Wadi, Nagarwada, and Tandalja areas. These are available all year round at a small shop/eatery opposite Nyaymandir, as well as near the masjid in Sayaji Gunj near the Kadak Bazaar underpass (garnala).

With more and more people becoming health-conscious, large samosas are becoming a bit of a no-no. And so, the cocktail samosa (cheese and corn, paneer and peas, simply potato, and sometimes the awful oily Chinese square one) have become a popular starter on the party circuit. There are a couple of guys, though, who started making these simple bite-size samosas that have become a rage since the last few years. One of them has a larri near the Cow Circle on Productivity Road and the other is Pappu ke Samose near the D R Amin School, close to the new Court campus. Both of them often exhaust their stock by 2 pm!

The bite-sized samosas at Pappu’s; barely an inch-and-a-half all three-ways!

However, samosas are samosas. Every neighbourhood has its own favourite farsan/halwai guys, whose samosas the locals swear by.

But let me tell you about one really unusual samosa. The Biryani Samosa. Surprised? I was too when I saw that on the menu of an Indian Fusion restaurant I was at with friends in the Bay Area, California, I ordered that right away. (Unfortunately the mobile I took its picture on conked out and it’s lost in the clouds somewhere.)  The presentation was mouth-watering; a tall triangular crisp pastry cover (or fried dough), broad at the bottom, stood charmingly on a dinner plate with some fresh salad on the side. The question was, how do I attack this? Do I whip the triangle off dramatically to reveal what is beneath? Or do I gingerly fork around the base of the triangle, keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn’t topple over and embarrass others at the table? While I munched on a piece of cucumber from the salad, the samosa solved the problem itself. When I picked up the cucumber, it dislodged the samosa a bit and a little pile of steaming flavor-some rice tumbled out. As I spooned it up with a smile, more and more made their way out from under the samosa teepee, until it gently fell on the side, revealing a generous mound of veggie biryani underneath. Interesting. Even a piece of samosa shell matched with the biryani in the same mouthful was certainly a delight!

Fusion, without confusion.