Papri Chaat (Indian Street Snack With Potato, Chickpeas, and Chutneys)

Even by hour 36 of the long flight from LAX to Dhaka, my family still hadn't ended the debate. Should we risk it? Passionate arguments were whispered across the tiny aisle as we unwrapped our pre-portioned stir-fried beef in oyster sauce. Our attempts to keep the discussion to ourselves proved futile, and eventually, the mostly Bengali-speaking cabin erupted into a town hall meeting, with each opinion more persuasive than the last.

"I know the best chaatwalla in Shyamoli! It's very clean, he only uses bottled water!"

"Don't take the risk of the street, there's a great dhaba in Gulsan!"

"Wait until your last night; then by the time you get sick, you'll already be back in the States."

The debate, of course, was over if, when, and where we would eat chaat, the broad term for the various snacks sold by street vendors across Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. Regardless of the logical rebuttals, our answers were ultimately yes, right away, and the first place we could find, respectively.

What's a Chaat?

"Chaat" is the moniker used to describe a set of South Asian snacks that are a powerhouse of flavor and texture. They manage to mesh together salty, sweet, spicy, tart, and more without skipping a beat. They are impossibly compelling, somehow featuring everything crave-able in a single checkered paper boat.

Deep within the bewildering assortment of chaat lies a rough outline that defines it as a dish. The foundation is usually a starchy component, such as crisp puffed rice or fluffy lentil-and-rice dumplings. That base is then topped with anything from hard-boiled eggs to fried lentils to radiant, ruby-colored pomegranate seeds. The only requirement for an ingredient to make its way into a chaat is that it has to bring some serious punch to the party.

Every chaat is made slightly differently, not just from city to city and vendor to vendor, but also according to each patron's taste. Extra chili? No problem. Not a fan of raw onion? You got it.

I've never turned down panipuri chaat, a rendition with crisp fried shells stuffed with spiced potatoes and filled to the brim with a fiery and bright tamarind water. It's meant to be eaten immediately, in one bite, and never fails to satisfy.

My father is a fool for bhel puri chaat, a crunchy combo of puffed rice, roasted peanuts, fresh cilantro, and razor-thin slices of Thai green chili. It's all tossed together with pungent mustard oil and served up in an inky newspaper cone, ready for a walk through the teeming market. There are heartier chaats as well, such as the greedy samosa chaat, in which a samosa is smashed open and buried under warm stewed chickpeas, cool yogurt, perky chutneys, and a fistful of sev (wispy fried threads of chickpea batter).

Although "chaat" is the word used to identify these various bold snacks, more importantly, chaat is a social event. Going out for a chaat is akin to a happy hour, where the versatile bites are enjoyed in between meals and after work with cups of sweet, milky tea and peppery gossip. In addition to the street-corner carts, there are also mini food courts devoted to chaat, where manifold vendors, armed with their arsenal of spices, brawl for your business. Menus fly, fryers bubble, and the diner always wins.

Chaat is pervasive throughout South Asia, though some scholars believe its origins are in the state of Uttar Pradesh, home of the Taj Mahal in the city of Agra. During the time of their dynasty, Mughals held court in Agra, which quickly developed into a bustling commercial hub for traders throughout the empire. As a result, stalls sprouted within the city selling poori, paratha, kebab, and chaat to travelers and merchants. These culinary traditions likely spread from the imperial city to other regions, where the dish evolved into the many forms found today.

The Key to Chaat: Chaat Masala

At first glance, the dizzying array of chaats can seem overwhelming. Chaat is so diverse that you can refute almost any statement made about it, but the one thing they all have in common is the balance of salty, sour, spicy, and sweet flavors. Each component in a chaat will bring at least one of these qualities to the table.

The real heart of chaat, though, is the spice mixture called "chaat masala"; it finds its way into every iteration, whether sprinkled liberally on papris or stirred into chutney by the spoonful. All on its own, this single spice blend adds salty, funky, spicy, and sour flavors to anything it touches. It's such an essential chaat flavoring that merely sprinkling it on sliced fruit or mixed nuts can conjure the chaat experience.

For more on the array of spices and seasonings that make up this blend and what each contributes, see the introduction to my recipe for chaat masala.

Chaat Up Your Life: How to Make Chaat at Home

In South Asian cities, it's difficult to walk a meter without tripping over a chaatwala, but in other parts of the world, the search for good chaat can become an endless march. If you've grown up eating chaat, the other obstacle can be finding one that tastes true to your memories. I'm never satisfied by papri chaat if it doesn't taste exactly like the one my parents would use as a bribe to take me sari shopping during my tomboy age.

Making chaat at home allows you to make it to your personal specs, but requires expert shopping, devoted prepping, and a lot of fryer oil. Even though each individual component in chaat is quite simple, there are a lot of them to make. Luckily, there are many ways to make chaat at home, whether it's for a first taste or to relive a flavor experience you haven't had in years.

The Quick and Easy Route

Given how central chaat masala is to the flavor of chaat, just having the spice mix is enough to arm you with all you need to chaat up your life. You'll still have to plan ahead by ordering the specialty spices online or hiking through the aromatic aisles at your local Indian grocery store, but once you have the spice mixture made, there are endless easy ways to use it to create a chaat experience at home.

Sprinkle it on fruit with a dollop of zesty Greek yogurt, and you've instantly made a fruity, chaat-y snack. Combine it with chickpeas, hard-boiled egg, tomato, and onion, and you've re-created a classic chana chaat. The acidity in the spice blend works well with seafood, so a dusting over lime-marinated shrimp is all it takes to make a ceviche chaat.

A favorite gas station snack of mine has always been Chex mix. The erratic combination of cereals and seasonings reminds me of bhel puri chaat, which is what inspired me to make a chaat-spiced version of the classic. I made the mix to my taste, with extra corn and rice Chex, few wheat Chex and pretzels (because who needs 'em?), and an absurd amount of chaat seasoning. I admit, it's probably more seasoning than necessary, but, as someone who's known for digging through a bag of Doritos for that one extra-cheesy chip, I don't see the point of snack foods if they don't leave your blood pressure elevated.

Feel free to turn the volume down if you prefer a sane level of salt and spice, but definitely don't skimp on the sugar. Sweetness is the one area where chaat masala falls short, and without sugar, the balance just won't be right. When you slowly toast the un-spiced snack mix in a low oven, the cereals crisp and the sugar melts into a sticky glaze, allowing the chaat masala to coat every crevice. In my first batch of testing, I tossed the mix with the chaat masala before baking, resulting in scorched, bitter spices. I've found it best to instead shower on the spices right out of the oven, while the sugar is still tacky and warm.

This hybrid snack combines easy-to-find ingredients with chaat masala to create something that has the complexity of chaat, but comes together in a snap.

Down and Dirty: Papri Chaat from Scratch

If you're feeling particularly brave, and have an afternoon (or weekend) to kill, then dive into this recipe for papri chaat. Papris are crispy chips made from a simple wheat dough. Much like nachos, the papris are topped with assorted accoutrements of complementing and contrasting textures and flavors, all of it always dusted generously with chaat masala.

Traditionally, you find the papris buried under fluffy boiled potatoes, tender chickpeas, cool yogurt, bright mint chutney, sweet-and-sour tamarind chutney, and crunchy sev (fried chickpea noodles). The recipe can look intimidating at first, but just like with nachos, you can save time and effort by purchasing some or all of the more labor-intensive components—like the papris, sev, and chutneys—and assembling them at home, adjusting the ratios to your tastes.