Haldiram's Punjabi Samosa

The promotional images for Haldiram's Punjabi Samosa make it look almost freshly made. Since we all know from pictures of burgers from burger chains that ad copy is probably not the same as the real thing, it really comes down to taste.



The pictures below are from a 460 gram box purchased yesterday, stamped as Packed on Oct-2014 and Best Before Mr-2016. Obvious differences between the promotional pictures are:

• Appearance of the wrap: I baked mine and in the picture I had cut them open to re-heat on a Cuisinart Griddler
• Thickness of the wrap: At least twice as thick as in the picture, but there is still a good amount of filling.
• Colour and texture of the filling: (if you stop to think about it, obviously frozen = eventually looks different)
• Nowhere near the fresh yellow potato colour.
• Leathery peas.
• Potato mix is a ground mush.
• Not the same number of colourful peas -- and, to be honest, I wouldn't have liked too many peas, but it sure makes for a more colourful and appealing picture
• No mention of the two dips that come with it.

The differences between the art and the final product are so glaring as to be (in my opinion) unethical. However, if you judge this product on taste alone, it is decent for a frozen product and easy to prepare.

Samosa

• Ingredients: Potato, Wheat Flour, Green Peas, Refined Palmolein Oil, Edible Vegetable Fat, Salt, Green Chilli, Ginger, Coriander Leaves, Cumin, Cashew Nuts, Mixed Spices (Cumin, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, dry mango powder, dry ginger powder, black salt & red chilli powder), Black Salt, Red Chilli Powder, Mint Leaves, Coriander Seeds, Asafoetida & Turmeric Powder.
• Taste of the filling is actually pretty decent:
• There is some spicy heat, which probably classes as "medium" for North American palates.
• Bitterness of the curry is not that strong. If you don't like it, put some of the sweet chutney on it -- just a little so that you don't lose the heat.
• The thick wrapping is not so thick that you are mostly eating wrap versus filling. And it holds up well against deep frying and baking. Nothing really wrong here unless you are upset that it is not as thin as the picture on the box.

Sweet Chutney

• Ingredients: Sugar, Dry Mango Slices, Dates, Tamarind, Black Salt, Dry Ginger Powder, Cumin, Refined Palmolein Oil, Salt, Mixed Spices (dry ginger powder, clove, nutmeg, mace, cinnamon, black pepper, cardamom & bay leaves), Red Chilli Powder, Black Pepper Powder & Asafoetida.
• From the ingredient list, this looked like a Sweet Mango Chutney.
• Sweetness is almost honey-like powerful so don't slather too much on the samosas unless you also want to drown out the spicy-heat of the samosa filling.
• This was actually decent and a nice accompaniment to the samosas.

Green Chutney

• Ingredients: Coriander Leaves, Milk Solids, Lemon Juice, Mint Leaves, Green Chilli, Black Salt, Mixed Spices (Coriander Seeds, Red Chilli, Turmeric powder , Black Pepper, Pomegranate Seeds, Mint, Dry Fenugreek Leaves, Dried Mango Powder, Dried Ginger Powder, Mustard Seeds, Fennel Seeds, Cardamom Seeds, Cassia, Dried Onion, Dried Garlic, Clove, Nutmeg, Caraway, Mace, Green Cardamom & Asafoetida) & Cumin Powder.
• The French ingredient list is more descriptive of what this is: "Chutney Coriandre-Menthe" -- Mint-Cilantro Chutney.
• This looked like black swamp gunk you scrape off your boot after wading in a marsh.
• Smelled awful.
• Fresh is obviously better and would have looked green.
• I didn't try this. I threw it away.