It was just me and my mother, all by ourselves in our old house, when a distant relative decided to drop by unannounced. As a good host, my mother immediately rushed to the kitchen to make them some tea, but when has just one single cup of tea sufficed for an evening full of endless chatter and banter. The tea needed its best companion, so my mother decided to send me to market to fetch some hot samosas. Since I was all of nine, and had never once been to market unaccompanied, there were a copious number of instructions, and boy, did I ace the task assigned. I returned with a bag full of 12 hot samosas and chutney, and saved the day in a matter of minutes. Whether it is a big occasion or small, or whether you are simply cravings something, hot, fried and crispy, samosas always deliver. While a desi gathering is never complete without samosas now, but the crispy snack actually arrived in India from the middle-east in the 13th century A.D, where it was known as sambusak. The triangular, stuffed pastry comes with a number of fillings, apart from the standard potato. Here are some of our favourite samosa recipes.