Dahi bhalla, papdi chaat, aloo chaat and so much more…

If it’s your first attempt at trying Indian food and then might I suggest that you try the Indian street food first. Especially the chaats. They are scrumptious and hard to keep your hands off of them. North India is very famous when it comes to Indian chaat. But you will find different versions of chaat all across the country. The chaat in India is very diverse but what’s common between them all is the spicy, sweet, and savoury combination. This burst of flavours will leave you in awe of Indian chaat. This is all about the spices used in the recipes. They bring out the best flavours and aroma.

What do you need to make the perfect chaat?

The thing about chaat is that even though they are all different from each there, you might find that the ingredients used are pretty much very common.

Most of your chaat will have potatoes, chickpea flour, refined flour, etc. You will find that potatoes are used both as the main ingredient and binder in some of the recipes. For instant, the aloo tikki chaat recipe has potato as the main ingredient.

You will need always need tomatoes, onions, and potatoes for pretty much all your chaat recipes.

For the tangy, spicy burst of flavour you can rely on ingredients like tamarind, green chilies, raw mango, aam choor powder or raw mango powder, sugar, red chilies, mint leaves, coriander leaves, curd, coconuts, etc. With these ingredients you can make:

• Tamarind Chutney
• Red Garlic Chutney:
• Mint Chutney
• Coconut Chutney

You can add chopped raw mangoes in your chaat. I personally love it.

If you have made up your mind about having chaat for your evening snacks, then you must keep your pantry full of masalas like garam masala, chaat masala, pink salt, black salt, pani puri masala, and any other ready made masala that you want.

The toppings of chaat are the highlight. Every time I am having chaat outside, I have this habit of judging the taste and quality of chaat by he generous and variant amount of toppings that they put. You can pomegranate, peanuts, sev, crushed puri, papdi, chana dal, etc for the toppings.

Now that you have all the ingredients, you should try with these three chaat recipes.

1. Dahi bhalla

Dahi vada is prepared by soaking vadas made out of lentils in thick dahi or hung curd. You add your vegetables, chutneys, and toppings. You can choose to make the curd sweet or keep it as it is.

2. Papdi chaat

Papdi or papri chaat is will make tongue tickle like no other chaat. It has a blend of crunchiness and flavourful chutneys accompanied by goodness of boiled potatoes, chickpeas and sprouted moongs. If you prefer you can also add curd to it.

3. Ragda pattice

Ragda pattice is made with mashed potato patties or aloo tikki. The tikki and the chhole or white chickpeas form the base for the recipe which can be topped with vegetables like onions and tomatoes. Add all kinds of chutney that you like, give it a nice mix as you mash the aloo tikki and add generous amount of toppings.