Green Mango - Chaat Corner

Chaat

“Chaat” is a term describing savory snacks, typically served at road-side tracks from stalls or food carts in India and Pakistan. With its origins in Uttar Pradesh, chaat has become immensely popular in the rest of South Asia. The word derives from Hindi cāṭ (tasting, a delicacy), from cāṭnā (to lick), from Prakrit caṭṭei (to devour with relish, eat noisily).

The chaat variants are all based on fried dough, with various other ingredients. The original chaat is a mixture of potato pieces, crispy fried bread Dahi vada or Dahi Bhalla ("Bhalla" in Hindi), gram or chickpeas and tangy-salty spices, with sour home-made Indian chilli and Saunth (dried ginger and tamarind sauce), fresh green coriander leaves and yogurt for garnish, but other popular variants included Aloo tikkis (garnished with onion, coriander, hot spices and a dash of curd), bhel puri, dahi puri, panipuri, dahi vada, papri chaat, and sev puri.

There are common elements among these variants including dahi, or yogurt; chopped onions and coriander; sev (small dried yellow salty noodles); and chaat masala, typically consisting of amchoor (dried mango powder), cumin, Kala Namak (rock salt), coriander, dried ginger, salt, black pepper, and red pepper. The ingredients are combined and served on a small metal plate or a banana leaf, dried and formed into a bowl.


Sandwich

The name ‘sandwich’ first appeared. An Englishman, John Montague (1718–1792), the Fourth Earl of Sandwich (Sandwich is a town in the South of England), liked to eat and gamble at London’s Beef Steak Club. Sometimes he stayed 24 hours at the gaming table. He was hungry, but he didn’t want to stop gambling, so the chefs from the club put some beef between two pieces of bread, and he ate while he gambled. This new meal became very fashionable with other men in the club, and they called it the ‘sandwich’ after the Earl.

An American writer, Eliza Leslie, introduced sandwiches to America. In 1837, she wrote a cookbook, ‘Directions for Cookery’. In it she had a recipe for ham sandwiches: ‘Cut some thin slices of bread and ham. Butter the bread and put the ham between two slices with some mustard. Eat for lunch or supper.’ Americans loved them.

We tried to provide the authentic of "Chaat" and "Sandwiches" to suite our liking. Try once and you will love it.