Authentic? Beats me. Good? Yes. (My Bhel Poori)

A couple of years ago I was taking one of my sons to a class where one of the moms and dads brought a snack each week. What had started as a simple spread of Chef Earl hummus and cheese cubes from Jewel soon grew more competitive-- okay, I made it more competitive-- as the elaborateness and the exoticism of the snack seemed to get ratcheted up week by week. Now, give me a dinner to serve and I have no problem getting fancy with meat, side dishes and dessert, but the interesting thing here was that there was a general rule that we were to keep it vegetarian, and one of the kids had a wheat allergy so you at least needed to have something for him, and so on. This meant that I was forced to start delving in areas of cooking less familiar than my standbys.

Looking through cookbooks for something made without wheat, I opened Sheila (half of Silver Palate) Lukins' All Around the World Cookbook. I consider this a somewhat middlebrow cookbook, presenting international cuisine but not always in a totally authentic way, very much adapted for American cocktail parties. Still, a good book for giving you background and tastes from a lot of different cuisines. In this case, what I found was a couple of pages devoted to Bhel Poori (or bel puri), a term I had seen up on Devon but really didn't know what it was.

According to Lukins-- and I don't doubt that elaboration and clarification will follow this post-- it's a popular street food in India, despite being notably ill-suited to the genre, it seems to me. Imagine if there were stands where you mixed Chex Party Mix to order, that's kind of what we have here-- you have some crunchies, some vegetables, some seasonings and chutney type toppings, and while you stand there it's all mixed for you in a bowl and served to you. Now right there, the fact that you need a bowl and spoon seems awkward for street food, compared to say a pork taco. But a bunch of bowls from which you served yourself, including a bunch of non-wheat-based crunchies, was perfectly suited to my son's class, especially if I took the expedient of mixing together a few of the more unwieldy items ahead of time to reduce the number of bowls and make transport easier. As it turned out, I think that also improved the flavors, as you'll see.

I went to Patel Brothers on Devon and quickly found the ingredients that wouldn't have been at Whole Foods. That Bhel Poori is a quintessential dish was made obvious by the fact that one of the staff saw what was in my cart as I was shopping and said "You're making Bhel?"

The crunchies were two chickpea-flour based snacks, papdi gathiya, which is roughly Frito-sized, and thin sev, which is little sticks like shredded wheat; and some speckled, not perfectly white puffed rice, which I acquired in an absolutely enormous bag for all of 60 cents or something, and eventually made very organic-looking Rice Krispie bars out of. More recently SWAD has started making a "Bhel Poori mix" in a bag which includes all three items, lightly seasoned, and so I simply buy that and a bag of the papdi gathiya (since there's not that much of it relative to the others in the mix). I haven't tried other brands, but they look greasier in the bag compared to the SWAD, so I stick with that.

Anyway, here's what my spread looks like, ready to dish up:



And here's how you start. Put some papdi gathiya and the bhel poori mix in your bowl:



After the crunchies, you add cubes of boiled potato, to which I had already added lemon zest, red pepper and salt and pepper which are, apparently, normally each dished up from little bowls. Call me an anti-traditionalist, daring to mess about with a classic, but I think combining those ahead of time with the potato made the flavors come together better than if they had been merely sprinkled on top:



You have garbanzo beans (the first time I boiled and shucked my own; never again, canned is fine), a little chopped red onion and cilantro:



And finally, you have the goop (or as they call it in India, the gupta). Again, this is a case where I combined things and, I think, they benefited from it. According to Lukins, at this point you top your bowl with yogurt, a coriander chutney (the classic green chutney you see in Indian restaurants), a little tamarind sauce and some diced tomatoes. For ease of transport, however, I made the goop ahead of time, mixing the green chutney and a little tamarind extract into the yogurt to taste, and then, feeling it was a little one-dimensional, adding just a little of a sweet mango chutney to add a sweet note. (More recently I've found a tamarind chutney that includes the sweet note, and skipped the other.) The result was a wonderful, fresh-tasting yogurt sauce, cool, a little spicy, a little sweet, and very refreshing. I just don't think it would be the same if you added those things separately:



Okay, it may not look like much plopped on top there, but it's pretty wonderful. And actually an Indian-American mom in the class said-- I don't think she was just being polite-- that she too thought the blending of the flavors was better than the traditional way of serving it.

It was a big hit, even though ironically, the kid with the wheat allergy was out that week. I've made it several times since, most recently for a small gathering at my house from which these photos come, and it works great as a slightly exotic, very approachable and delicious snack served up in a fun and unusual way.

After a couple of tries, I decided it would be interesting to see how mine compared to the more authentic version, and ordered it at a couple of places on Devon. For whatever reason of geographical difference, however, it was served in a very different way-- no coriander chutney but rather the maroon-colored chutney (what is that, pomegranate? I forget) is mixed in with it. It's a much sweeter, stickier dish that way, with to my taste none of the refreshing green character of the coriander chutney. It's more of a sweet, like a Rice Krispies bar covered with raspberry jam, rather than the savory dish I love. So sorry, authenticity; my Bhel Poori, Americanized and reengineered though it may be, is the Bhel Poori for me.

Patel Brothers
2610 W. Devon Ave. and other locations
773-262-7777

Mike, Bhel is pretty customizable, so your approach is totally cool.

and yeah it's totally street food. there's a really nice scene in ardashir vakil's beach boy (which is a pretty nice little book with very nice food scenes btw) re bhel puri and folks customizing it at the stall

Some things I like to include in my home versions - shredded green mango, haldirams potato stick mix, some cubed boiled potato, tamarind chutney mixed with yoghurt, chopped "finger hot" chiles, I'm not a big fan of undressed garbanzos, so unless I have some prepared channa, I leave 'em out.

Mike G wrote:
And finally, you have the goop (or as they call it in India, the gupta).

is that a joke?

Yes.

Mike G wrote:After a couple of tries, I decided it would be interesting to see how mine compared to the more authentic version, and ordered it at a couple of places on Devon. For whatever reason of geographical difference, however, it was served in a very different way-- no coriander chutney but rather the maroon-colored chutney (what is that, pomegranate? I forget) is mixed in with it. It's a much sweeter, stickier dish that way, with to my taste none of the refreshing green character of the coriander chutney. It's more of a sweet, like a Rice Krispies bar covered with raspberry jam, rather than the savory dish I love. So sorry, authenticity; my Bhel Poori, Americanized and reengineered though it may be, is the Bhel Poori for me.

I think your Devon experiences reflect some Gujarati versions that include sweetened tamarind sauces; Patel bros, Kamdar Plaza, and many others on Devon are gujarati.
But bhel can be so many different things... your version looks as fantastic as I'm sure it tasted.

In addition to adding some chopped green chillis as zim notes, try using other packet 'mixtures' - although I would avoid/reduce ones that include raisins etc. (these would be better plain, straight out of the packet)
If you get a bag of puffed rice, toasting/dry frying will help refresh the grains.

As an encouragement to your improvisation, I suggest trying some minced dill pickles in your goopgurt - it'll add add some sourness and crunch (which helps reduce the raw onions which can get over powering).

I must add not only does your bhel look good, but also these are the best looking dishes I've ever seen bhel served in!

Hi,

My introduction to Bhel Puri and Devon Avenue came from my across the hall neighbor in Moscow. They were Brahmin Indians from Bombay with a daughter living in Chicago. The very first Bhel Puri is still the best and one I have been hard pressed to reproduce. They sent their servant into the kitchen of a Devon AVenue snack shop to supervise the preparation. We had both the green and red (tamarind) sauces.

On one of our solo ventures for Bhel Puri, we were asked how hot we wanted it. I said, "Normal," which was a big mistake. I was eating and weeping my way through the Bhel with my only refuge from the heat was untouched cereal or the boiled potatoes. The owner took my plate away and told me next time to order my Bhel, "Sweet."

I really commend you for providing an interesting and imaginative snack for your son's class. The only ones who genuinely consider it competitive are the ones who buy the packaged snack from Jewel or Whole Foods, then breathlessly breeze in complaining how busy they are. You raised the bar and provided a learning experience for yourself and your kids.

I ran into this problem with a women's group I used to belong to. In the time it took me to get to Jewel to select something and return. I could have a cake in the oven and spent less real-time in the preparation. They actually accused me of showing off, when I was really saving my time.

Thanks for the interesting post.

sazerac wrote: try using other packet 'mixtures' - although I would avoid/reduce ones that include raisins etc. (these would be better plain, straight out of the packet)

I'm a pretty big fan of the haldiram packet mixtures, which are available in lots of places, though I think the largest selection is at kamdar. They make a pretty good bhel puri packet, complete with powders to make your own sauces.

Fwiw, for snacking I really like their panchrattan and corn flake mixes - do folks have any other favorite snacking packets?

A couple of years ago, I tried an experiment based on the Chowpatti version of this which they call "loaded Indian nachos", to create an Indian Seven Layer Dip on the order of the Mexican Seven Layer Dip's I've had. I don't remember everything I put in, but it included spiced mashed potatoes (instead of cubed -- I wanted this scoopable), yoghurt sauce, diced cucumber, diced tomato, chutney and chow mein noodles (couldn't find Sev in the burbs at the time -- I know where to look now). The scoop was Sun Chips: a good, wheaty snack chip substitute for the wheat chips Chowpatti uses.

It was only partly successful, it turned out kind of gloppy.

If you are looking for some great packet mixes IN THE USA you need go to Punkawalla's Naan Mix at:
http://www.naanmix.com

They have Naan and Paratha mixes that have cream and yougurt in them so you just add water. Also Poori, Roti and Chapati mixes (I think?). They have a big section on Indian Cooking with lots of photos. Check it out if you want India food at home.