Chaat me up!

February 12, 2020 6:35 PM

I am fortunate to live by a plethora of Indian chaat places/grocery stores and buy a variety of pickles and spices that I'm more or less familiar with, but I'm overwhelmed by my options when it comes to bagged crunchy snacks. Because I love papadum, onion bhaji, and pakora, I think I really would like would be something chickpea-flour based. What words should I be looking for on the bag?
posted by mzurer to Food & Drink (8 answers total)

Response by poster: Also, maybe I'm wrong about which flour is used for those things. I dunno!
posted by mzurer at 7:04 PM on February 12, 2020

Look for sev. There are some varieties of sev not made with chickpea flour so you'll also want to confirm with the ingredients. Note that garbanzo bean flour is the same as chickpea flour.
posted by peacheater at 7:05 PM on February 12, 2020 [2 favorites]

First, also look for besan or gram flour (and also bengal gram), which generally mean brown chickpea flour (ie., not white chickpea flour)

Then, chakri/chakli (kind of spiky-looking crispy spirals or sticks, depending upon the specific variety) contains chickpea and rice flour and are nice. Also, papdi gathiya, boondi (some are sweet, but others aren't), some chivda mixes, and some bhujia mixes are predominately chickpea based (rather than, say, mainly peanuts with a few bits of sev).

You may also find this wiki page useful.

Beware chakli. If you open a bag, you're probably going to finish it despite your best intentions. ;-)
posted by aramaic at 7:44 PM on February 12, 2020 [4 favorites]

Chaanay/ Cholay maybe also spelled chaane/chole. These words mean chickpeas. Look for foods with these words, including roasted chickpeas and chickpea stews.

Besan is the name of the chickpea flour used in pakoras and baji. Much healthier than wheat flour!
posted by cacao at 7:45 PM on February 12, 2020

Bujia is my favorite snack. Its chickpea flour based, sometimes with peanut flour (the combo is called moth flour) and is seriously addictive. Savory, spicy, a bit sweet...you have been warned.
posted by ananci at 8:04 PM on February 12, 2020

Ganthiya/ganthia are my favorite, made with besan. If the picture on the bag looks like this, go for it: https://www.desiclik.com/images/P/IMG_5771.jpg
posted by last_fall at 8:49 PM on February 12, 2020

I really like Haldiram's Dal Biji (lentils with threads of sev). Their "Mixture" is really good too, and includes sev (I plowed through a bag of this two nights ago).

Protip: since it's smaller pieces/threads, put it in a bowl and use a little spoon to eat it to keep your fingers clean, especially when eating while wielding a remote or using a keyboard/mouse.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:11 PM on February 12, 2020 [1 favorite]

Chivda is a/the word i think of for mixed fried/dried savory indian snack (or Namkeen). Corn Flakes Mixture (many brands) is always a favorite. if the selection is particularly robust you might see bhakarwadi, which i guess you could describe as spicy/savory indian rugelach - rolled besan pastry is filled with a spicy and vaugley sweet coconut filling.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 6:46 AM on February 13, 2020