Chai Street: Indian Street Food Recipes for Vegans and Vegetarians

By Pragati Bidkar

From the acclaimed author of the best selling Dinner Ideas Cookbook series -

Chai Street: Indian Street Food Recipes for Vegans and Vegetarians celebrates the street food of India. 30 recipes from the different regions are explained step by step for global readers, augmented with highly illustrative and beautiful food photos. Street food equals fun, and the book takes a playful look at favorites such as Bhel Puri, Vada Pav and Pav Bhaji from the streets of Mumbai, Bread Pakora and Aloo Chaat from Delhi, Chura Matar of Benaras, Idli from the South, Momos from the North and North East and of course, Chai Latte or Masala Chai, the fuel India runs on.

Chai Street makes exotic Indian food is easily accessible to culinary adventurers and home cooks across the world. The recipes in the book are Bold, saucy, spicy, tangy, loaded with a variety of flavors and textures that explode in your mouth, teasing your taste buds. Just the way Indian Street Food should be!

Praise for other books in the Dinner Ideas series -

5 stars - '...handy book for a vegan bean lover...'
5 stars - ' great book for vegetarians and international food lovers...I'm in Daal heaven with this book...'
5 stars - '...first introduction to Daal...pleased to have so many recipes to try...'
4 stars - '...great cookbook... I loved the bright and cheerful photography...'
4 stars - '...Can you think of even 5 ways to serve daal? Delicious looking photographs, enough to make your mouth water...'

5 stars - '...Wonderful book... couldn't resist "Get Well Soon Rice Stew"...'
5 stars - '...World cuisine made accessible to weeknight cooks...'

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pragati Bidkar
• Release date: Aug 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370143702

Pragati Bidkar

Pragati Bidkar is the founder and creator of the immensely popular vegetarian food blog KamalKitchen.com. ‘Kamal’ means wonderful or magical in the Hindi language, and it is everything she wants her blog and recipes to be.Pragati started experimenting in the kitchen since a young age and has been dishing out yummy food for friends and family for 25 years. She studied and worked in the United States for many years, and absorbed regional cuisines and influences. Today, she focuses on using locally available produce and selective herbs and spices in her cooking.In her books, you will find a Less is More approach to Indian cooking. Her recipes are bold, flavorful and tailored for global food lovers and culinary adventurers.

Book preview

Hello, Hello and Namaste!! The most common greeting in India, Namaste literally means I bow to you and welcome you. Thank you for choosing my book out of the many available.

I started the Dinner Ideas cookbook series with my first book, 30 Days of Daal, which features Indian lentil recipes made simple for foodies across the world. Rice Bowl came next with Indian and global rice recipes. Both of these books have received wide acclaim across the world, and have topped the charts several times.

The time is perfect for Chai Street which is all about street food in India.

Bold, spicy, tangy, sweet, sour, salty, hot – every recipe in Chai Street celebrates Indian Street Food and is an explosion for your taste buds.

All recipes are explained in detail step by step, and come with striking, mouth watering photos.

As always, we will start off with an introduction for those who are unfamiliar with Indian food, or Indian street food.

If you are Indian or you frequently cook Indian food, you may be familiar with the information given in the first few chapters. Please feel free to skip ahead to the recipes and start cooking.

Street Food in India

Can anything be as exciting as street food? Hot dog carts in New York City, pretzels in Berlin, Pad Thai noodles in Bangkok – street food is popular all around the world. But I think Indian Street food has a charm of its own. Walking down a random street, a whiff of hot frying pakoras comes your way, and your feet have a mind of their own as they take you to some small handcart or kiosk, where a big wok of oil is frying up all kinds of crispy, crunchy, piping hot treats. After that, any thought of calories or hygiene is forgotten as you wrap your mouth around everything the vendor has to offer.

When it comes to Indian street food, there are two types of consumers. There are the recreational street food eaters who are very particular about what they eat, and where they eat it. With increasing pollution and lack of clean surroundings in urban areas, more and more people choose to cook street food at home. They may venture out and actually buy food from small local joints once in a while, or order the same items in fancy restaurants.

And then there are the masses, people on the move, who regularly eat street food from street carts or street vendors, probably because they need it, and it is the only food they can afford. Street food is part of their two square meals a day. These are regular hard working people who walk miles to get to work, ride the local trains, stand for 8 hours to do their job or engage in sheer, hard labor. We can safely say that these are the real consumers of street food in India.

Considering their time and cost constraints, street food needs to be ready quickly, be filling and sumptuous, provide some ready energy and above all, provide a variety of tastes and textures in a single dish. A tall order, you may think, but most of the street food in India manages to satisfy these requirements.

Fried food such as Pakoras, Samosas, Bondas etc. – different types of fritters – form a large part of the street food repertoire. Sev and Farsan are used as toppings to provide both flavor and crunch. Condiments like chopped onions and fried chilies are piled on for added flavor and spice. And the chutneys! Sweet, salty, sour and hot chutneys are a must when it comes to Indian street food.

Most street food dishes are served with a variety of chutneys, providing a unique taste in every bite.

Every region of India offers something different when it comes to street food. Local tastes and dietary preferences play a big part. Some items have become universally popular and are found across the country. But the Ragda Patties you eat in Mumbai will be totally different from the Aloo Chaat of Delhi.

This book highlights some of the most