Tips for Enjoying Street Food in India

The street food , although not everything "diet" or "healthy" that could be desired (only God knows how many times this oil is reused), has a price that makes it accessible to most of the population. For very little money, you take away hunger: a plate of noodles , a masala dosaï , fried rice with vegetables. Any of these dishes, in one of the countless stalls in the street, will never exceed 15 or 20 rupees. And if you still want to spend less, or you only want a snack, for five or, at most, ten rupees you can be equally satiated.

Here we discuss the street foods in India are:

Samosas

The street food par excellence. Something like an empanadilla , chubby and triangular, made from a dough of flour, and stuffed with vegetables, potatoes or even meat, less often. Watch out! They also carry chili and many spices , so it is better to have a bottle of water nearby. Once you get used they are very good, and for five rupees you buy a piece (the Indians usually eat them two by two) that fills you for a good time.

Pakoras

Fried vegetables, like a donut, in chickpea flour. The most popular are spinach, onion, eggplant, cauliflower, although it is also possible to find meat (chicken). They are taken a lot as a snack , or as an entree at meals. A good newspaper cone full of them costs five rupees on the street. Also, check out the Palace on Wheels price for this season.

Kachori

Flour dough rounded and crushed, stuffed with moong dal (green soybeans), lentils, chickpeas ... All very spicy and fried later. Like samosas , they are usually served two by two, on a leaf as a bowl, bathed in different sauces. There is also its sweet version, filled with ingredients such as coconut and sugar.

Aloo Tikki

Potato cooked and then fried that can be eaten alone, crumbled and dipped in different sauces  (some spicy, and other sweets, to soften its flavor ), served on a banana leaf. It is also not uncommon to find them in their original form (that is, without shredding) in hamburgers, as a meat substitute. It is very popular, and it is seen everywhere. Do you remember that I commented that it was Pushkar's star dish ? Even Mexican sandwiches and "tacos" do with it ...

Fritangas in general

There are so many that it would be impossible for me to name them all. For example, in the third photograph of this post (that of the pakoras) , you can observe in the foreground some triangular things. What are they? Well, neither more nor less than it seems: bread. Bread fried in the same flour as pakoras , with oil burlads, and sometimes stuffed with lenjeta or other vegetables. 

Regarding tastes

In addition to the fritangas, the amount of carts with nuts, homemade cookies, fruit is unbeatable. Another of the star appetizers, of which you don't remember the name, is a kind of “salad” made from everything that man has been able to load in his car, but especially chickpeas, parsley, tomato, pepper, onion, peanuts, all very chopped and seasoned with chili, pepper and a splash of lemon. Despite its light appearance, it fills a lot.

Sweets (Mithai)

Indians love sweets. To verify it, you just have to go for a walk on any street, and in less than five minutes you stumble upon two or three patisseries full of these small delicacies wrapped in aluminum foil (which, although your first instinct is to remove it, you should know that it is eatable).

Indian sweets are so sweet
Tremendously cloying, or delicious, as seen. The basis of all of them is sugar, flour and milk, to which is added coconut, honey, dulce de leche, pistachio, almond depending on what you touch. The variety is so much that you simply going to leave you with the photo, and everyone who imagines what they want.

They look good, right? Its flavor lives up to its appearance. As a curiosity, the only one that you do not like at all, is also one of the most popular: Jalebi, a dipped syrup dough that is thrown in a boiler full of oil where it is frying forming the most capricious forms

Paan

To finish the meal, nothing better than a good paan (or so say the Indians): nut betel, lime pulp, spices and many condiments , all wrapped in a sheet, also edible betel. There are two varieties: sweet and savory, which also carries tobacco.

Drinks: the chai

The chai is the national drink: milk tea, very sweet and almost always, with many spices ( masala chai ), which give a very intense flavor.

Chai sellers are countless, and it is not uncommon to meet five in the same corner (the Indians have no sense of competition), around which mountains of caps accumulate from the small clay vessels used as a glass that, go You know why, they are of a single use (with how cute they are, heh).

Drinks: Lassi

The lassi we've talked many times based drink yogurt smoothie, only ( plain lassi) , sugar (sweet lassi) or salt (salt lassi) . Within the sweet variety, in any restaurant we can find banana lassi, orange lassi, mango lassi and even chocolate lassi, the options are endless.

Drinks: fruit juices

And finally, the juices: orange, pineapple, mango, sugarcane. Made with fresh fruit, refreshing and delicious while travelling in the Palace on Wheels train