Bhel puri (also bhelpuri, bhel poori, It is typically made with two chutneys: a spicy, tangy tamarind chutney (made with dates and jaggery) and a coriander leaf chutney (made with mint, chilli, and peanuts). A red garlic chutney may additionally be used.
thumb|alt=A street food vendor spoons onions onto newsprint to serve. His stall has several ingredients, including puffed rice, peanuts, tomatoes, lemons, and chillis.|Bhel puri vendors mix ingredients one at a time.
Bhel puri is a type of chaat, or savoury snack. Like other chaats, it uses deep fried ingredients; however, it does not use dahi, and it may have as many as fifteen basic components, unlike typical chaats with only two or three. Bhel puri has a balance of sweet, tart, and spicy flavours, as well as different textures; the dish is prepared by adding one ingredient at a time to preserve each texture. According to food writer Vir Sanghvi, the texture relies on precise timing and proportion, and the complexity of the texture is not typical of Indian cuisine. Some people classify bhel puri as a salad.
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Bhel puri is a street food, usually eaten while standing; it is traditionally eaten by hand, using the papri to hold the food, The Bengali variant of bhel puri is called jhalmuri, which is made with mustard oil. Masala puri is another version, made with boiled peanuts. An Indo-Chinese chaat dish called Chinese bhel is based on bhel puri and uses noodles, scallions, and chilli sauce.
History
Origin
Sanghvi writes that, while the category of chaats originated in North Indian cuisine—particularly that of Uttar Pradesh—bhel puri is generally said to have originated in the cuisine of Mumbai. Sanghvi describes it as the only chaat dish that did not originate in North India. According to food writer Vikram Doctor, it is based on chaat as well as the category of puffed rice snacks, which is from East and South India. According to Sanghvi, the ingredients like sev and puffed rice are of Gujarati origin, and, according to food writer Kunal Vijaykar, the use of these ingredients is rooted in the Gujarati farsan. Anthropologist Harris Solomon writes, "bhel puri has a lineage connected to groups ranging from Gujaratis to others as far away as West Bengal." The term bhel puri comes from Hindi bhel, which means 'mixture'.
The exact origin of bhel puri is disputed. A restaurant called Vithal, near the Victoria Terminus station in Mumbai, was founded in 1875 and has claimed to have invented bhel puri. by Gujarati migrants in Mumbai and quickly gained popularity. Its version of bhel puri became known as the true version, and bhel puri became more associated with Gujaratis than Uttar Pradeshis.
Like other Mumbai street foods, bhel puri has spread to most parts of India. In both urban and rural areas, the snack is culturally associated with street vendors at busy locations such as beaches and marketplaces. It is a popular street food in Kolkata. The area of the city around Lake Kalibari has two popular bhel puri stalls, Khirkiwala (since the 1930s) and Bhelwala (since 1983), and is known for a version called Lake bhelpuri, which contains dhokla. Street food vendors in Kolkata also serve bhel puri on bread, known as "bhelpuri toast". In the United States, Indian restaurants commonly serve bhel puri as an appetizer, along with other street foods and other Western Indian dishes. It is also served at Indian snack shops in the country.
Supermarkets stock ready-to-eat packets of bhel puri and similar snacks like sev puri. The snack company Haldiram's sells a version of bhel puri, which it markets in Western India. Bhel mix is a product that includes puffed rice, papri, and sev, to be used as a base for bhel puri or as a snack on its own. Another product sold in grocery stores is bhel chutney, consisting of tamarind chutney with puffed rice and sev.
See also
- Sev mamra
- Ghugni