A Santacruz stall owner combines the staple Maharashtrian breakfast with the North Indian samosa to create a scrumptious combination



Santosh Sawant. Pics/Sayyed Sameer Abedi

We've had poha and samosa on numerous occasions, individually. But, the prospect of the two street favourites combined in one, had us curious. So, on a rain-soaked Wednesday, we dropped by at Santosh Sawant's Batata Wada Samrat stall to sample this dish.

Situated right outside Santacruz (W) station, this modest street stall sells Maharashtrian delicacies, everything from kotumbhir vadi to puran poli. But, it's the 'patti samosa' or 'the South Indian samosa' (poha stuffed in samosa) that drives the sale, along with, of course, the vada pav. Fortunately, when we reach, a staff member, Ajay Patel who hails from Bihar, is frying fresh piping hot samosas, and promptly offers us one.

The patti samosa, priced at Rs 32 for two, seems to be as large in size as the average Punjabi samosa sold on the street. But, that's where the similarities end. Despite being stuffed with poha, the taste does not remind us of anything we've had before.



At Batata Wada Samrat, these whimsical samosas are the hottest selling items

The flavours are rich and not spicy. The mashed green peas and the generous sprinkling of jeera, kaddi patta and mustard make it all the more savoury. "The secret is in the spring onions and the tadka we add to the masala. We also use sunflower oil, which makes a difference. The idea was to make it exactly the way we make it at home," says owner Santosh Sawant, who set up the stall 30 years ago.

The samosa coating is paper-thin but has layers. "You get ready made maida batter in the market for the patti (covering), but it's quite expensive. So, we prefer making it ourselves," says Sawant, who has hired two staff members to prepare these samosas. Interestingly, Bablu Mohammed, who makes the patti is visually impaired. "I've been making this for the last 25 years, so I know how the texture is supposed to feel," says Mohammed, who lives in Kurla, and comes to Santacruz at 7 am to prepare the patti.

In a day, at least 200 patti samosas get sold. "It's not as common as the batata vada because the process is tedious. But we have regulars who come just for this," says Sawant. The stall even won a certificate of appreciation in 2014 from memaharashtrian.com for its food quality. Well deserved, we say.