Pani Puri

Pani Puri is a favorite street food in India. In lots of "chaat" stalls around the cities, you can see people standing around carts popping little pieces of deliciousness into their mouths! This is my absolute favorite Indian snack (well...um... okay One of the many!).

It consists of 3-4 components - a deep fried puri, a sweet chutney, a spicy chutney and a stuffing for the puri. You first make a little hole in the puri, add a teaspoon of the stuffing, add a spoonful of each stuffing and pop it in your mouth before everything starts falling out! Its fun to eat!


Pani Puri
(recipe from Bhavani @ Snap Eat Burp)

Sweet Chutney

100 g Dates, boiled
1 marble-sized ball of Tamarind
1 tsp Chilli Powder
1 pinch Black Pepper
1 pinch Salt

Grind all ingredients together in a food process and keep aside.

Spicy Chutney

1 cup Cilantro Leaves
1/2 cup Mint Leaves
5 Green Chillies, coarsely chopped
4 cups Water
2 Cloves
1 small Cinnamon Stick
2 Cardamom
1 tsp Cumin Powder
3 tbsp Jal Jeera Powder (available in most Indian grocery stores)

Grind the cilantro, mint and green chillies together with the water and salt.
Roast the cloves, cinnamon, cardamom and cumin on a medium heat in a saucepan. Grind to a fine powder.
Mix the roasted and ground spices and the jal jeera powder with the ground cilantro mixture.

Stuffing for the Puri

1/2 cup Green Moong Dal/ Green Lentils, soaked in water until tender
1/2 cup Garbanzo Beans/ Kabuli Channa, soaked in water and then boiled
5 small Potatoes, peeled and boiled
3 tbsp Channa Masala (available in all Indian grocery stores)

Combine all ingredients together with a little salt to taste.

Puris

2 packets Puris (available in some Indian grocery stores)

OR

you could make your own puris. Priya @ Food for Bliss has a lovely recipe for making your own puris at home. She has some great photos of the pani puri too!

To Eat:

Crush the top of the puri a bit. Stuff the puris with the veggie stuffing, add a little bit of the sweet chutney, dip into the spicy chutney and eat in one bite. Enjoy!

Tried & Tasted: Usal/ Misal

I saw this recipe on Nupur's blog, One Hot Stove, many months ago. Ever since then, I've been on the hunt for matki or moth beans. It's really hard to find here in Chennai! And then when Zlamushka announced that it was Nupur's blog chosen for this month's Tried and Tasted event, I decided to really up the ante on my search, so to speak.

I finally found the elusive beans, and was glad that I could finally make the Usal/ Misal. Usal is a huge favorite in the state of Maharashtra in India. Its a sort of soup-y dal made with lentils, peanuts and potatoes - sound good? Well, let me say it was Fabulous!

Misal is a variation on Usal - add some toppings like crunchies (crushed potato wafers, hot mixture), chopped onions, yogurt - and you're good to go. And this tastes almost better than the Usal.

So here we go with the Misal/ Usal. I'm going to do it pictorially, because I followed Nupur's recipe exactly.

First I made the Kolhapuri Chutney. This sounded complicated and I was a bit apprehensive, but when I got down to it, it was not so tough. The only thing I want to say here is please make sure that the onions are completely dry before grinding, otherwise the chutney will spoil easily.

First, roast the spices.

Grind the spices to a fine powder.

Mix in the chilli powder.


The chutney/ powder itself was good and I'm glad I made it at home. It's available in most Indian grocery stores. Next came the Usal, which is pretty straightforward once you've made the above Kolhapuri Chutney. It tasted fantastic and really healthy too (I used sprouted matki beans). The addition of the peanuts was great and gave it a lot of crunch. Will definitely be making this very often.




And then the Misal. We made this the next day with the leftover Usal. I can't believe I've never had this before - I made a resolution to try it at my favorite little "chaat" shop next time I'm there. It's delicious!


Thanks Zlamushka for the event which spurred me into finding those beans and making this! And thanks Nupur for the fantastic recipes - it's a family favorite now!