Vegan MoFo Iron Chef Challenge

When the first Iron Chef Challenge of Vegan MoFo 2010 was announced as mashed potatoes, I immediately knew what I was going to make: Samosas! But I couldn't decide between plain white potato or sweet potato samosas.


I ended up making a half-batch of each. I made one batch of dough, and added sautéed spices, onion, garlic, sweet peas, sliced almonds and dried currants to each batch of mashed potatoes. I really love this combination, and enjoy how much character each ingredient brings to the whole dish. The spices bring the heat and flavor, but the sweet peas and currants help cut the heat, and the almonds bring a nice crunch.

I love samosas, and I like all the various ways you can customize them. You can use different spices, different dried fruit, different vegetables, and different nuts, or completely omit the fruit, vegetables or nuts based on what you like, and what you have.


I also made a small bowl of fresh apple tamarind chutney. It was basically about some tamarind paste, a bit of yellow mustard, agave to taste, salt, ginger and garlic, mixed up, then stirred together with one apple, which had been peeled and minced.


Since the challenge was mashed potatoes, I mashed these potatoes completely, although I usually like them a bit chunky for samosas. Either way is nice, it's just a personal pereference. You can probably tell from the first picture that my sweet potato samosas were a little flatter. When using sweet potatoes, you need to make sure they are very well drained, since they tend to contain more moisture than white potatoes.