In article >,
> wrote:
>Huh? I would rather not make pakoras or samosas myself

Heh. Reminds me of the first time ever in my life I tried to cook
a meal. Samosas are easy enough when you know how, but not for a
first-time cook.

I tried making mung bean soup and samosas for a party of 5
roommates, with whom I was living for a short while in a vegetarian
house.

The "Moosewood Cookbook" said prep time is 2 1/2 hours, I recall.
Hah! I'm glad I started in the morning with the intent to
refrigerate them and have them ready for deep-frying by evening.
8 hours later, I was still working to get them done in time for
dinner. Not having learned the skill of cleaning up while working,
I had used up almost every pot and pan in the well-stocked kitchen.
I was in a panic.

Another source ofpanic was the mung bean soup I tried to make at the
same time, without a recipe, just my own "intuition". Right. I
figured, 5 people eating, here's a soup bowl, so I measured out 5
bowls of beans into a pot. I felt a growing sense of alarm as I had
to transfer to a bigger pot twice, ending up with a cauldron, and
had to run to the store to get more ingredients to cut into the soup.

The soup samosas turned out wonderfully, and my roommates were
impressed, saying I shouldn't have attempted samosas my first time
cooking anything. We were eating that bean soup for 4 days, though.

-A