Eat gorgeous & Feel gorgeous :)!!!

My college days were excellent period. Apart from traveling in those heavily crowded BMTC buses…Life was fantastic while we 4 friends sat on a bench chatting, sharing our churmuri packets!

Snacks were available just outside our college gate. Those who have been in B’lore can vouch for a churmuri Gadi/Tela/stall in front of almost every college. And these stalls used to have varieties of snacks like churmuri, tomato masala, bele masala, pineapple masala, nippat masala, sovthekayi masala…that were not available in any of the big shops or restaurants. There was one such Gadi just outside our college gate and an elderly man used to make these snacks so we called it 'Thatha’s Gadi' (thatha in kannada means grandpa). But now heard that he has retired & subsequently his son takes over.

I used to try making few of these at home in the company of my mom & granny and also had the churmuri in the same paper cone (to get that gadi effect ;)) but was never convinced to the Gadi level :d. I always felt that the Thatha used some top secret concoction for his delicious dishes which once our tutor in the class joked about it as, it was his sweat and the hands that he dips in water and the cloth that he uses to wipe his hands bla bla bla. But nothing stopped us 4girls from having those chatpata snacks. Everybody in our class used to tease us saying that we better keep an attendance book near the Thatha’s Gadi also :-p

Chats are one of my favorite snacks, which I can have anytime and every time. I miss those chats I used to have at Bangalore - I tell myself that these are healthy snacks with no oil, no potatoes so that I continue eating them: d. Here goes my simple easy to make 1 plate of nutritious snack.

Tomato Masala

Ingredients

Tomato sliced in round - 1

Onion: 1 small sized finely chopped

Carrot: 1 small grated

Tamarind paste: 1 tbspn (this is a paste of tamarind pulp+jaggery boiled together and cooled)

Green Chutney: 1 tbspn (this is a paste of coriander+green chillies+lemon juice+ginger+cumin seeds+sugar+oil+asafetida+salt)

Lemon juice: 1 tbspn

Sev/fried-spicy groundnut (widely known as congress kadalekaayi beeja): 1/2 cup

Chat masala: 1 tsp

Cilantro: for garnishing

Puffed rice/murmura – 1/4 cup S

Salt to taste

Method:

• Mix chopped onions and grated carrot and keep it in a plate before starting the dish.
• Primarily, layer the tomato slices with green chutney and tamarind chutney. {Refer the below pic}
• Then place some of carrot+onion mixture on each slice. Now sprinkle some salt, chat masala (if req you can add some red chilli powder also) & crown it with sev or any other mixture and cilantro
• Finally garnish with puffed rice and dash of lemon juice.

Tomato Masala

And now its time for the faithful to celebrate resurrection of the Savior – Enjoy Easter with chocolate bunnies and Easter eggs….Happy Holidays :)!!

This recipe has been submitted in the Event 'Sunday Snacks - Chaats/Indian Street Foods'