NORTH INDIAN STREET FOODS - GREEN CHUTNEY AND SWEET CHUTNEY

I wanted to write about North Indian street foods for a long time. About 2 years ago I had done some online research to get a general idea about common street foods . It was from a sea side shack in Juhu beach that I had bhel puri for the first time. It tasted great but was extremely spicy as per my standards. Later I got the recipe of a less spicy version from my sister in law and it became an instant hit at home.

Pani puri ( gol gappa) was the second dish I tried.Got the recipe from my daughter  who picked it up from her friend Veena.They both were famous on campus for the “pani puri corner” put up during get togethers. They used the easy method,getting most of the ingredients  (sev, chutneys and puri) from the local Indian store. I too prefer buying puris from   Thakkar or Amman Bhelpuri ( both are N Indian restaurants) in Salmiya since the puri making process takes quite some time, preparing semolina dough, rolling out small puris, frying and finally baking to keep them crisp . 

Both bhel puri and pani puri belong to the "chaat" group of street foods. Snacks like sev puri, dahi puri , papdi chaat (the list is long)  too come under this category.(As per Wikipedia    Chaat is a term describing savoury snacks, typically served at road-side tracks from stalls or carts in India.with its origins in east India )

Other than chaat items there are various other snacks like tikkis, kachoris, vada pav, pav bhaji , misal pav, dahi vada etc  served by street venders in Mumbai and other North Indian cities. I have  tried to recreate many of them at home, of course with slight modifications. I am planning to post recipes of some of the most popular ones here.

As mentioned above the chaat items have some common ingredients like sweet and hot chutneys, sev, cooked potato or chick peas, chopped onion , chopped coriyander leaves, chaat masala etc.Chaat masala is something similar to garam masala in looks but with different ingredients like aamchoor (dry mango), dry ginger, black pepper,,cumin, black salt, ,etc..ground to a powder. It is available in all supermarkets under different brand names. 

Let me start with the most important ingredients. They are the 2 chutneys, green chutney and sweet chutney,the amount of which decides the spiciness of the "chaat"There is  one more chutney,(which I seldom use) the red chili chutney which may be added to make the dish more spicy.

GREEN CHUTNEY

INGREDIENTS

1. Coriander leaves - 2 cups
2. Mint leaves - 1/2 cup
3. Garlic - 2-3 cloves
4. Green chilly - 3-4
5. Lime - 2
6. Salt

METHOD

Extract the lime juice. Mix it with all other ingredients and grind to a paste.

SWEET CHUTNEY

INGREDIENTS

1. Dates - 20
2. Jaggery - 1/2 cup
3. Tamarind - 1 table spoon
4. Red chilly powder - 1/2 tea spoon
5. Chaat masala - 1/2 tea spoon
6. Salt

METHOD

Presure cook dates , jaggery and tamarind with 1/4 cup water for 5 minutes. Cool, remove seeds from dates and tamarind and grind to a fine paste. Add chilli powder,salt and chaat masala and mix.

RED CHILLY CHUTNEY

1. Red chillis - 10-12
2. Garlic - 2 cloves
3. Salt

Deseed and soak chillis for 20 minutes. Grind to a paste with garlic and salt.