M: My Indian neighbor fried triangular things that seem like they are Indian in nature, but also are not just very good, but seem like they would be good for adaptation. All right, let me give a little bit more on that as soon as I get my attention back. Okay, so they come out as like triangular pockets of food. They have definite Indian spice to them, which is part of why I want to try modifying them so that my mother can enjoy something similar. And they were filled with some sort of brown paste, which could have been like potato or chickpea or a blend or something. It was the consistency of some of the fluffier mashed potatoes, but with a little bit more density. And it had like peas and carrots in it. Likely it was vegetarian. From that description, can you go online and figure out what it might be? Like I said, I'm pretty sure it was fried, simply because the crust was that kind of crisp. Triangular bread or starch pockets, likely some form of bread, but given the source, I'm reluctant to actually try and call it a straight-up bread. It could be a naan or something like that, but I wouldn't know. And there were enough of them that either they were pre-made or homemade thin enough that when it was done, it was almost the perfect width of bread because it was sufficient to hold it comfortably without getting damp from the contents, but not so much as to overwhelm the contents themselves in terms of consistency or flavor. The first step is to identify what the hell they are. After that, I'll go looking for recipes to see if I can turn it into some sort of like cottage pie or something that my mother can enjoy. Although it probably would be necessary to keep it vegetarian in order to maintain that crispness, because I think part of the reason it wasn't as damp as something can get is because there was a lack of... Animal-based foods.

G: TL;DR: You are almost certainly describing a vegetable entity["food","Samosa","Indian triangular fried pastry"] — probably an aloo (potato) samosa or a regional variant like a shingara/singara. The peas + carrots + mashed-but-dense potato filling inside a crisp triangular shell is basically the textbook description. citeturn0search0turn0search3turn0search4

And your instinct about it being “adaptable” is dead on. Samosas are basically a modular delivery system for spiced fillings.

A few things from your description that strongly point there:

That is samosa territory almost exactly. The shell is usually not naan or bread in the fluffy sense. It’s more like:

The crispness comes partly from:

The standard filling is usually:

Your “brown paste” description is probably:

Your adaptation idea is actually very workable.

You could absolutely turn the concept into:

The key engineering issue is moisture management.

The reason the original worked so well is:

So if adapting for your mother, you’d likely want:

Think: “savory pie filling engineered for deep frying.”

Honestly, samosas are closer to portable fried savory pies than most Americans realize.

Also worth noting: there are regional versions all over the world:

All descendants/cousins of basically the same ancient “stuff tasty thing into dough triangle” technology. citeturn0search9turn0search15turn0search16

And yes — your “this seems like it would adapt well” instinct is exactly why the form survived across continents for centuries. It’s structurally elegant food design.