What an eternal bliss mother’s love is!! I was thrilled some weeks back (20 days precisely speaking) for her arrival. Overjoyed with my list ready in my mind (so was Romesh) of the foods we would ask her to cook for us. More was the joy of meeting her after a big gap of 6 M and tons of gossips, we were missing together…of relatives, neighbors and more…winks, wink…. And who doesn’t enjoy such fun??

We talked about close friends, distant relatives, “never-so-discussed-far-long-forgotten” people in the past, abt my office and her house hold chores, I sulked, shouted, cribbed over the issue of “never a good job done by domestic help”, I cursed “Bina” – my baby’s caretaker for many of her mistakes she does day by day…seemingly never ending. I cribbed, but she heard me patiently, suggested and expounded. We shopped often…though bought very less stuff that includes 1 damaged sari .

Among many such fun things and masti, I did not forget very important things too. I fully exploited the free time I was getting those days due to less project activities (and more over, I am working from home these days). I learnt making her-types “jhol wala alloo”, the right way to prepare “lauki ke kofte”, Bread Pulav (her signature recipe – probably will come later in this space) and many super delicious recipes. One such crunchy-munchy-tangy-very-indian recipe is “KATORI CHAAT”.

Katori means bowl. We prepare katoris using maida(all purpose flour) dough. And place the spicy, tangy, yummy  chaat mix inside this katori, sounds yum. Isn’t it??The chaat mix contains the stuff like onions, tomatoes, coriander, curd, green chutney, tamarind chutney, spices, chilies and some boiled choley and potatoes too. So,off to the method

Serves : 10 katoris

Ingredients:

For “Katoris” –
    1 cup Maida
    1 tsp. ajwain (carom seeds)
    1 tbsp. oil , more for frying
    water to knead dough
    salt to taste
    4-5 medium size sharp edged steel bowls. ( the bowls should have regular edges, not fancy and curvy)

For “Chaat” –
    1/2 cup overnight soaked and boiled chholey (chickpeas)
    1 boiled potato, peeled and cubed. 
    2 onions, finely chopped
    1 tomato, pulp removed and finely chopped
    1/4 cup any green, all purpose chutney
    1 lemon size tamarind pulp, soaked for an hour
    chaat masala
    2 green chilies, finely chopped
    coriander for garnishing
    salt per taste
    red chili powder
    bhujiya (sev), preferably thin variety.
    1/2 cup curd
    jeera powder
    chili powder
    some sugar for tamarind chutney (according to your required sweetness)
    a pinch Rai for tamarind chutney

Preparation:

For Katoris:

    Take the maida in a bowl, pour oil, salt and ajwain in it.
    Mix until maida takes a crumbly form. If you bind the maida in your fist, it should bind and not fall apart. If not so, add some more oil and repeat the process. (this is called moran). This gives crispness to the katoris.
    Now add water enough to bind the dough, it should not be soft like a regular dough.
    Now make lemon sized balls from the dough. Use dry maida to roll out the balls in to chapattis if required. Meanwhile heat enough oil for frying in a deep kadhai.
    Now take the bowls up side down and place the chapatti onto it.Paste this on chapatti firmly and edges of the chapatti with the edges of bowl and remove the excess dough. Make sure, the maida has been pasted using fingers carefully without any ruptures and some crease in the maida is fine.
    The oil should be hot now. Place one katori at a time into it. Once the maida starts leaving the edge of the bowl, hold the bowl using a kitchen plier carefully and remove the maida katori into oil and take off the bowl. Pour the oil of bowl into the katori. This fries the inner side of the katori. Now flip the katori up side down for complete frying. Once fried fully, remove from the oil on a paper napkin for absorbing excess oil. Please be extra careful while frying the katoris.
    Follow the same process for all katoris.
    Make sure, you clean the oil properly from the used bowls if you are using them again for preparing katoris.
     Now, store the katoris in a paper lined air tight box, can be used anytime in next 7 days

For “Tamarind Chutney” –

    Squeeze the tamarind pulp through a sieve to deseed it.
    Heat oil in a pan. Splutter some Rai.
    Add tamarind pulp and salt, some sugar, red chili powder, jeera powder and mix well.
    Add water for your desired consistency.
    Bring it to boil.

For the “Katori Chaat”

    Lightly fry the chholey and potato cubes in some hot oil with salt.
    Now place 2 spoons of chholey-potato mix in a katori. Put some onions, tomatoes & curd.
    Now top with both green and tamarind chutney.
    Sprinkle some green chilies, chili powder, jeera powder, salt & chaat masala.
    Top with bhujiya and coriander.
    Your bowl of delicious chaat is ready, Attack! 

Notes:

As this is a chaat dish, all the items may vary in quantity according to your choice. Bcuz this is 1 item zara hatke, I am categorizing it in party menu.

Chutneys, curd, chholey and katoris, all are salted. So adding salt in the chaat should be takes care of.