Aloo Tikki chaat, aloo papdi chaat, pani puri, bhel puri, and samosa chaat are popular Indian snacks. You can buy all of these cheap eats from the street vendors in all over India. One of my favorites is Bhel Puri.
There are also many restaurants and cafes in the New Jersey/ New York City area where I can go to enjoy this snack, such as Hot Breads (Parsippany, NJ), Moghul Express (Edison, NJ), Sukhadia's (Edison, NJ), and most north Indian restaurants have it on the menu as well.
However, I'm not in India right now and I don't feel like driving to go get this snack. What I can do?? No worries.
Mom to the rescue! She always knows what to do when I'm craving snacks.
She told me about Bombay Kitchen's Bhel mix. This mix is made up of puffed rice, sev, and spices. This mix is also gluten-free because sev is made from chickpea flour and puffed rice is made from, well, RICE. DUH!!
Making Bhel puri is quite easy once you have the two ingredients I mentioned above. The snack is typically made with puffed rice, sev, tomatoes, onions, fresh coriander, and sprinkled with tamarind sauce.
I was excited to see that my mom has multiple bags of this bhel mix. Now I can make and enjoy this snack to my heart's content.
Below are the ingredients I used:
- 1/3 cup of Bhel Mix by Bombay Kitchen (which is a mix of puffed rice, sev, and spices)
- 1/2 to 1 ripe but firm plum tomato, finely chopped
- 1/4 cup of finely chopped red onion
- a few sprigs of fresh coriander, finely chopped (optional)
- 1 to 2 tsp of tamarind and date chutney
- 1 tsp Coriander Chutney (optional)
Mix together all of the above ingredients in a bowl and enjoy! That's it. That's the recipe. Now, go make it. It's nice and easy. You can adjust the ingredient amounts above as per your taste. 😀
Word of caution: do not wait too long after you mix all the wet and dry ingredients together because it will get soggy. That's no fun. 😥
I would definitely recommend all to buy this bhel mix. It tastes good on its own or you can use it to make your favorite snacks. It's great for parties. And it is reasonably priced.
Bombay Kitchen Bhel Mix is available at most Indian grocery stores. It is also available for purchase online, at www.patelbrothersusa.com
