Desert snacks

One of the little pleasures of my life is to have breakfast in Old Delhi. Once in a while I step out of the house early in the morning and go towards the Walled City. And then I stroll into Maliwara near the Marwari Katra off Nai Sarak, the lane for books, and stop by for a hearty Marwari snack of bedmi and aloo.

Bedmis are stuffed puris that you eat with spicy potatoes with a dollop of chutney by the side. And then, if I am still feeling peckish, I round off the meal with Nagori halwa – which is a dish consisting of a crispy puri served with suji ka halwa. After you’ve eaten this, you jog back home, hoping to unclog your arteries.

There is nothing quite like Marwari savouries. I think I got hooked on to these when I was a small boy in shorts. Those days, when travelling to Kolkata meant a long train journey, it was great if your co-passengers were Marwaris. They would take out huge baskets and tiffin carriers of food — and feed everybody in the compartment till they reached their destination.

More often than not the vessels contained snacks. And even now I get misty-eyed when I think of all those wonderful snacks that I lapped up on my journey — starting right from puris and aloo to pakoras and kachoris.

The snacks, I am happy to say, are still flourishing. Some days ago, the executive chef of The Hotel Hindusthan International group, Utpal Mondal, told me that he was planning out a Marwari menu for food lovers. I saw the list, and was completely mesmerised by the savoury section. All my old favourites were there — including the much loved pakoras made with chillies and kachoris stuffed with fried onions (see recipes).

You’ll notice that most of the snacks are made with besan or dal. Dals were the mainstay of the dry terrain of Rajasthan — which meant that they figured in quite a few of the dishes of the region. Dal was turned into besan and went into the making of chilli pakoras and gujjiya dahi wadas. The dal pakori was, of course, cooked with dal.

Another interesting regional snack is the papad bari ka patolia. I picked up the recipe from The Calcutta Cookbook. For this you boil some water and large spiced baris that have been broken up. When they are cooked you add quartered papads. Drain them, and then temper with asafoetida, cumin seeds and desi ghee.

Marwari snacks have to be served with the right kind of chutneys. Chef Mondal says the red chilli and garlic chutney — for those who do eat garlic, that is — goes very well with snacks. Then, of course, there is the green mint chutney, and the sweet and sour tamarind chutney, or saunth.

Chutneys and yoghurt are often mixed with a snacky dish. Chef Mondal’s paper basket chaat, for instance, consists of moth dal and channa dal mixed with potatoes and smothered with curd and chutney. You get the tart taste of the chutneys, and the fried and boiled potatoes and dals burst into a wide spectrum of tastes and flavours.

You really can’t beat the taste of a Marwari snack. That is why I make that extra effort every now and then to go all the way to Purani Dilli for a Marwari breakfast. With aloo bedmi in your stomach the day flows like a smooth chutney — sweet some of the time, tangy at other moments.

Mirchi pakoda (serves 4)

Ingredients: 16 whole green chillies, 500g boiled potatoes, 1 tbs red chilli powder, 1 tsp amchur powder, 1tsp garam masala, 1tsp chaat masala, 1tbs chopped green coriander leaves, Salt to taste
For the batter: 200g gram flour, 1tsp baking powder, 1tsp red chilli powder, oil for deep frying, salt to taste

Method: Prepare a thick batter with gram flour, baking powder, red chilli powder, salt and about one cup of water. Keep it aside for about 10 minutes. Slit and de-seed the green chillies. To peeled and grated boiled potatoes, add red chilli powder, garam masala, chaat masala, amchur, green coriander leaves and salt. Mash and mix well. Divide this into 16 equal portions. Stuff a little of the mixture from each portion into each green chilli and then cover it with the remaining potato mixture. Heat oil in a kadhai to a moderate temperature. Dip the stuffed green chillies into the gram flour batter and deep fry until golden brown. Serve hot with tamarind chutney and mint chutney.

Pyaaz ki kachori (serves 6)

Ingredients: For the dough: 2 cups plain flour, ¼ cup melted ghee, salt to taste
For the filling: 2 cups finely chopped onions, 1tsp onion seeds, 2tsp fennel seeds, 2 bay leaves, ½ tsp finely chopped green chillies, 2 tbs Bengal gram flour (besan), 2tsp coriander powder, 2tsp chilli powder, 1tsp garam masala, 3 tbs chopped coriander leaves, oil for frying

Method: To prepare the dough combine all the ingredients in a bowl and knead into a semi-soft ball using water. Keep it aside for 5-7 minutes. Divide the dough into 12 equal parts and keep them covered under a wet muslin cloth. Heat oil in a pan. Add the onion seeds, fennel seeds, bay leaves, green chillies and onions and sauté till the onions turn light brown in colour. Add the besan, coriander powder, chilli powder, garam masala and salt. Sauté for 2-3 minutes. Add the chopped coriander and mix well. Remove the bay leaves. Allow the mixture to cool completely and then divide into 12 equal parts. Roll out each dough ball into a circle of 2-in diameter. Place one portion of the filling in the centre of the rolled dough. Surround the filling with the dough by slowly stretching it over the filling. Seal the ends tightly and remove excess dough. Roll each filled portion into a 2 ½-in diameter circle taking care that the filling does not spill out. Gently press the centre of the kachori with your thumb. Repeat with the remaining dough and filling. Deep fry the kachoris in hot oil over a slow flame till golden brown. The kachoris take a long time to be cooked and should puff up like puris. Serve hot with tamarind chutney and mint chutney.


Garphiti