Curried Butternut Squash Samosas

What you need:

1 butternut squash
3 tablespoons of olive oil
1 diced white onion
2 cloves of chopped garlic
1 tablespoon of curry power
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 egg
1 package of wonton wrappers
canola oil for frying

Optional Items:

Sweet Thai Chili Sauce
Chinese Hot Mustard

What you need to do:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Cut your butternut squash in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds and filaments. You can certainly clean and wash the seeds and roast them in a light sprinkling of olive oil and salt. It really would be a shame to throw out this great protein snack. Lube up the squash halves with one tablespoon of olive oil and bake for 40 - 50 minutes or until the the flesh of the squash is easily punctured with a fork. remove from heat and let cool. Once you can handle them easily, scoop out the flesh into a large mixing bowl.

Heat up the remaining olive oil in a medium sized sauce pan and saute the onions and garlic until they are soft. Shouldn't take more than seven minutes. be sure not to burn the garlic or everything will come out a bit too acidic. Remove from heat and stir in the curry powder. Once this is completely blended, add the butternut squash in sections. Continue to mix until smooth and then add in the sugar and salt.

Let this mixture rest some and taste it. Gauge whether you need anything more to bring out the tastes you like. Too many cooks forget to taste things along the way and run into problems of over salting or sadly under salting. Now I like to let this rest in the fridge for an hour or two so that the mixture is completely cooled before I start assembling them in the won ton wrappers, but you can really just jump right in.

In a small bowl, whisk the egg until it's blended completely. Take out your won ton wrappers and place roughly two teaspoons of the mixture in the center of the wrapper and seal it up. I've found that using a melon baller really does the trick with these items. Try to remove all of the air pockets with either the back of the spoon or your thumbs. Brush the edges with the egg batter and repeat until you've filled all of the wrappers.

Now before you start frying, clear out in area where you can use a cookie rack with paper towels underneath. Fill a deep skillet with the canola or vegetable oil and heat on medium high until very hot. Work in small batches and remember to never toss anything into the grease and carefully fry each samosa for 2 minutes on each side. Remember to only turn them once.

Once they begin to turn golden brown remove them for the grease and let them cool on the racks. Think of these just as you would when you are making bacon -- get them out before they are done and let them finish cooking on the rack. Cook the remaining samosas in this fashion and serve immediately.



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