Missing ingredient for papri chaat

In article said:

Looking up recipes for a basic papri chaat was not very rewarding.
While I found out that masala chaat was one of the ingredients I
couldn't have guessed at, the most simple one was the papri crisps
(puris?) themselves. The recipes I found invariably had you making your
own -- cutting the dough and frying them yourself. This might be okay
for a party, but I wanted something I could just pour out of a bag. (I
thought of pre-frying a bunch for myself, but they would probably become
stale from humidity after a week or two, even in a closed bag.)

My next stop was a large local Indian grocer, but this brought not luck.
What in the world was I looking for? From appearance, papdi gathiya
*looked* the closest to what I wanted. While my experiment produced an
interesting new snack for me, it definitely was not a "real" chaat.

Are these crisps available in markets in the US? If so, what are they
usually called?

In a strange bit of irony, this past weekend I happened to be in a
previously unknown Indian grocery in Saddle Brook, NJ. They had a bag
labeled "Puri for Bhel" that looked like what I needed. They come in
thick, circular chips that are about 1½-2" across and fried. These are
broken up into smaller bits as needed.

If I had seen them under this name without noticing what was in the
package, I probably would have ignored them. The name makes me think
of bhel puri, which uses sev noodles, I think.

I just tried making a very basic chaat using these, and its taste is a
lot closer to what I expected. Yum!

--
Gregory Pratt [email hidden]
East Rutherford, NJ, USA http://www.panix.com/~gp/
"The only good spammer is a dead spammer."
PGP Key Fingerprint: DC60 FCDE 91E2 3D41 91A3 45DB B474 3D3A 3621 AAFE

In article said:

Looking up recipes for a basic papri chaat was not very rewarding.
While I found out that masala chaat was one of the ingredients I
couldn't have guessed at, the most simple one was the papri crisps
(puris?) themselves. The recipes I found invariably had you making your
own -- cutting the dough and frying them yourself. This might be okay
for a party, but I wanted something I could just pour out of a bag. (I
thought of pre-frying a bunch for myself, but they would probably become
stale from humidity after a week or two, even in a closed bag.)

My next stop was a large local Indian grocer, but this brought not luck.
What in the world was I looking for? From appearance, papdi gathiya
*looked* the closest to what I wanted. While my experiment produced an
interesting new snack for me, it definitely was not a "real" chaat.

Are these crisps available in markets in the US? If so, what are they
usually called?

In a strange bit of irony, this past weekend I happened to be in a
previously unknown Indian grocery in Saddle Brook, NJ. They had a bag
labeled "Puri for Bhel" that looked like what I needed. They come in
thick, circular chips that are about 1½-2" across and fried. These are
broken up into smaller bits as needed.

If I had seen them under this name without noticing what was in the
package, I probably would have ignored them. The name makes me think
of bhel puri, which uses sev noodles, I think.

I just tried making a very basic chaat using these, and its taste is a
lot closer to what I expected. Yum!

--
Gregory Pratt [email hidden]
East Rutherford, NJ, USA http://www.panix.com/~gp/
"The only good spammer is a dead spammer."
PGP Key Fingerprint: DC60 FCDE 91E2 3D41 91A3 45DB B474 3D3A 3621 AAFE

In article <[email hidden]>,
[email hidden] (Greg Pratt) posted:

Quoted message said:

In article said:

Looking up recipes for a basic papri chaat was not very rewarding.
While I found out that masala chaat was one of the ingredients I
couldn't have guessed at, the most simple one was the papri crisps
(puris?) themselves. The recipes I found invariably had you making your
own -- cutting the dough and frying them yourself. This might be okay
for a party, but I wanted something I could just pour out of a bag. (I
thought of pre-frying a bunch for myself, but they would probably become
stale from humidity after a week or two, even in a closed bag.)

My next stop was a large local Indian grocer, but this brought not luck.
What in the world was I looking for? From appearance, papdi gathiya
*looked* the closest to what I wanted. While my experiment produced an
interesting new snack for me, it definitely was not a "real" chaat.

Are these crisps available in markets in the US? If so, what are they
usually called?

In a strange bit of irony, this past weekend I happened to be in a
previously unknown Indian grocery in Saddle Brook, NJ. They had a bag
labeled "Puri for Bhel" that looked like what I needed. They come in
thick, circular chips that are about 1½-2" across and fried. These are
broken up into smaller bits as needed.

If I had seen them under this name without noticing what was in the
package, I probably would have ignored them. The name makes me think
of bhel puri, which uses sev noodles, I think.

I just tried making a very basic chaat using these, and its taste is a
lot closer to what I expected. Yum!

In my opinion no chaat cooked and prepared anywhere
can beat the chaat available at Bengali Market in
Indraprasth (aka New Delhi). Chaat, including paapr(r)ee,
is routinely made at my residence here in Hawaii but it
is at least 0.001 percent away from being perfect. 🙂

Jai Maharaj
http://www.mantra.com/jai
Om Shanti