Misal

I hardly know of someone who doesn't like chat, but when it comes to Maharashtrian Misal, you either love it or hate it! I never really ate very spicy food when I was in India, but after I cam to US 9 yrs ago, the lack of flavor in the American food kind of pushed me into boosting my spice levels. May be it was pure nostalgia, but today I can't have less than spicy food all the times. Even my 3 year old eats our level of spicy food! Well back on track, it was useless to expect to stumble across an authentic misal in the Indian restaurants here, so I figured it would be easier for me to try it at home. Some research here & there, and I found this replica of the authentic thingy on Nupur's blog, http://onehotstove.blogspot.com/2006/01/u-is-for-usalmisal.html. It turns out amazing & I always deep freeze the extra masala for future use. So the credit purely goes to Nupur for yet another amazingly easy recipe. If at all it matters, I acknowledge she rocks!!

Dabeli

Well who doesn't like street side junk food? I haven't seen anyone till date who has no liking for bhel, dabeli, pani-puri etc. There was a time when I was living off of this junk food & it was my staple diet. Indian junk food was the most important thing that I kept missing in the US until a few years ago when I took upon the job to create them myselves. Long international phone calls, reading cook-books helped me try these recipes on my own. Well, today I can say with confidence that these recipes are really not difficult & if we master the art of making chutneys, we can easily create the chaat we loved back home. Here I blog one of my all time favorites; Dabeli. I use home made chutneys, but if you want to, store bought chutneys should turn out fine as well.

Ingredients

3 medium size potatoes

1 tbsp jeera

1 tbsp red chilli powder

1 tsp turmeric

2 tbsp dabeli masala

2 tbsp oil

1/2 cup date tamarind chutney

1/4 cup mint coriander chutney

1/4 cup luke warm water

roasted peanuts, chopped onions, coriander & thin sev to garnish

Bread/Pavs

Preparation

1. Heat oil in a pan. Add jeera & pinch of hing after the jeera seeds flutter. Add turmeric & chilli powder. Let this simmer for a few seconds & add the mashed/boiled potatoes. Let this mixture cook for 3-4 mins & add the warm water. Dabeli mixture has to be a little soft, not too wattery though!.

2. Add dabeli masala, salt, some sugar to the mix. After 2-3 mins add the date chutney & let the mixture cool. Dabeli masala, sugar etc can be varied as per personal preference.

3. Heat some pavs on a pan with butter & stuff the dabeli mix in the pavs. Garnish with mint chutney on the pav, date chutney if needed, roasted peanuts, onions, cilantro etc as shown the picture. Enjoy your dabeli!