My first attempt at Indian cooking was a bit of a farce. It took me 5 hours to make a batch of samosas flecked with burnt mustard seeds and encased in tough, chewy pastry. As my husband and I sat down to a midnight dinner, you couldn't have convinced me that Indian cooking could be simple or easy. Little did I realize that samosas aren't exactly the easiest dish to tackle as a beginner, not to mention the fact that the recipe I was using was pretty unauthentic to begin with.