PAPDI CHAAT

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour

¾ cup whole wheat flour (if you don’t have whole wheat flour, you can use all-purpose flour)

2 tsp semolina

1 tsp carom seeds (or use any spices or herbs of your choice)

1 tsp salt

3 – 4 tsp oil

Water to knead the dough

Method

Mix the flours, carom seeds, salt in a large mixing bowl. Add in oil and rub gently till you get bread crumbs like consistency in the mixture.

Start adding water little by little and knead to make a firm dough. Keep it covered for about 30 minutes.

Knead it once more and divide the dough into equal size balls.

Roll out each ball with the help of a rolling pin into a sheet. Now with the help of a cookie cutter, cut round or any other shape from the rolled out dough.

Remove the extra dough and reuse it. Prick each papdi with a fork so that they don’t puff up while frying.

Heat oil in a frying pan. Add papdis to the pan slowly and fry them on medium heat. Fry them till till they turn golden brown.

Drain them on the kitchen napkin.

You can also bake these papdis in the oven like cookies, in case you don’t want to fry them.

Assembling of chat (For 1 plate of chat)

6 – 8 Papdis

½ cup of yoghurt (add 1 tsp of sugar to the yoghurt and whisk it with an egg whisker to make it smooth)

1 large potato boiled and cubed

3 – 4 tbsp of sweet tamarind chutney

2 – 3 tbsp of green chutney

Salt according to taste / ¼ tsp Black salt / Himalayan salt

¼ tsp of red pepper

¼ tsp of black pepper

¼ tsp Black salt / Himalayan salt

½ tsp of chat masala

 A Pinch of roasted cumin powder (dry roast 2 tsp of cumin on a skillet and then crush with a pestle or grinder)

2 tsp of sev (fried vermicelli made from chick pea flour) / you can substitute by using crushed crackers

2 tsp chopped coriander leaves

Arrange the papdis in a serving dish. Place the pieces of boiled potatoes over the papdis. Add a generous portion of yoghurt so that it covers the papdis. Top it with green and sweetened tamarind chutneys.

Sprinkle salt, red pepper powder, pepper powder, chat masala and roasted cumin. 

Finally sprinkle sev and coriander leaves.

Green Chutney

1 big bunch of coriander leaves washed

1 medium size onion

Juice of 1 lemon

Salt according to taste

1 green chilli (optional)

Blend all the chutney ingredients in a mixer with little water till it becomes a smooth paste. Add salt and lime juice according to taste. If you like you can add in a small ginger piece or a garlic pod. 

Sweet Chutney

As getting tamarind in Kiev is not easy, we can use sweet chutney made with dates.

250 gms seedless dates

Salt according to taste

½ tsp Cumin powder

Soak the dates in water for 2 – 3 hrs.

Put them in a saucepan and bring to boil. Simmer the sauce for 5 mins. Remove it from stove and let it cool. Grind it in a mixer. Strain in a sieve and boil the sauce one more time and add salt and cumin powder. If it is too thick add little water while boiling.

If you have tamarind paste, then in ½ cup of tamarind paste add some water and boil. Simmer for 5 mins. Add 1 cup of brown sugar, salt and cumin powder. You can add date paste to the tamarind and accordingly reduce the sugar. Adjust sugar requirement by tasting the sweetness. Cool and serve.