Name: Chana Chaat
Prep time: 20 min
Total time: 20 min
Yield: 6 servings
Cuisine: Indian
Ingredients: 2 x 400 g tins chickpeas, drained and rinsed; 1 red onion, finely diced; 2 tomatoes, deseeded and finely diced; 1 cucumber, deseeded and finely diced; 1 green chilli, finely chopped; 2 tsp chaat masala; 1 tsp ground cumin, toasted; ½ tsp Kashmiri chilli powder; ¾ tsp fine sea salt; 3 tbsp tamarind chutney; 3 tbsp lime juice; 2 tbsp coriander and mint chutney, or blitzed fresh herbs with lime; 40 g sev or crushed papdi; 30 g coriander, chopped; 1 tbsp pomegranate seeds

Chana Chaat

Chickpeas tossed with raw onion, tomato, chaat masala and tamarind, assembled in ten minutes and eaten within twenty. Every element is there for contrast rather than richness.

20 min total Serves 6 servings Easy

Build the Meal Around Chana Chaat

Masala chai
A cold beer
As a starter before anything

How to Cook Chana Chaat

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Pat the chickpeas dry with a tea towel — wet chickpeas dilute everything.
Toss them in a large bowl with the onion, tomato, cucumber and green chilli.
Sprinkle over the chaat masala, toasted cumin, chilli powder and salt, and toss again.
Add the tamarind chutney, lime juice and green chutney and fold through until everything is coated.
Taste. It should hit sour first, then salty, then a little sweet, with the heat arriving last. Adjust with more lime or chaat masala rather than salt.
Tip into a serving bowl and scatter the sev, coriander and pomegranate seeds over the top at the very last moment.
Serve immediately, while the sev is still crisp.

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A Few Notes

Assemble at the table. Ten minutes early and the sev is soft and the salad is watery.

Chaat masala is not optional and has no substitute — the black salt and amchur in it are the flavour.

Deseed the tomato and cucumber. The seeds are where the water is.

If You're Missing Something

Dried chilli flakes can stand in for the green chilli. Heat varies a great deal between chillies and between jars, so start with a small pinch and add more to taste.
Lemon is the everyday swap for lime in this kind of dish — the acidity plays the same role even though the flavour is not identical.

Keeping What's Left

It does not keep. The chopped vegetables can be prepared 4 hours ahead and stored separately.

Chana Chaat Nutrition

No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (some ingredient lines cannot be read). Why some recipes have none.

Vegan Vegetarian Gluten-Free Dairy-Free