Friday, March 13, 2009

Recipe: Bombay Bhel


Bhel puri is a type of chaat or savory snack that you get all over India but that's particularly associated with Bombay, especially the vendors who serve it along Chowpatty beach. You can mix just about anything tart, salty, spicy, or crunchy into it. Diced green mango and sprouted mung are typical additions. The most common ingredients are diced boiled potatoes, diced red onion, minced cilantro, and spiced puffed rice, deep fried, crunchy lentils, and sev (chickpea flour deep fried to make crunchy broken "noodles") tossed with a mix of sweet, sour, and spicy chutneys and spices and topped off with lime juice. Imli-date and coriander chutneys are the most commonly used. Sometimes chilli sauce and yogurt are added.

For my friend's shower, I mixed together about 1 1/2 cups puffed rice that had been tossed with red chilli powder (lal mirchi), salt, and coriander powder (dhania); 2 cups fresh corn kernels; 1/2 cup spiced roasted cashews; 1/2 cup sev; 1/2 cup fried chana dal; 1 large diced red onion; 3 medium potatoes, cooked but still firm, and cubed; 3/4 C chopped fresh cilantro; 1/2 C imli-date chutney; and the juice of one fresh lime.

No comments:

Post a Comment