Inviting friends over on your weekly off? Spice up the conversation with some mouth-watering Basket Chaat.

Get Ahead reader Sheetal Mahurkar, 28, loves to experiment with cooking in her spare time. She recommends a recipe with which you can whip up a crisp and spicy edible basket. 

• You can also post your recipes!

Katori/Basket Chaat

One basket is enough for one person, maximum two people. 

~Ingredients

For katori/basket

200 gm white flour or maida
300 gm oil
1/2 tsp salt
For green chutney
100 gm seeded dates
50 gm tamarind or imli
1/2 tsp chilly powder
1/2 tsp roasted cumin or jeera powder
1/4 tsp black salt
Salt to taste

For tamarind chutney

2 cups chopped mint leaves
1 cup chopped coriander
Juice of one lemon
5-6 green green chillies
1/2-inch piece of ginger
Salt

For the filling

11/2 cup masala chole
500 gm sweet curd (add sugar and beat it)
2 chopped onions
15 urad dal vadas (bhalle), small-sized
11/2 cup tamarind chutney
1/2 cup green chutney
100 gm sev
4 boiled and cubed potatoes
2 tsp roasted coriander powder
2 tsp roasted cumin or jeera powder
2 tsp chaat masala
1 tsp plain salt
1 tsp rock salt
1 tsp red chilly powder
1 cup chopped coriander leaves
1/2 cup pomegranate seeds

~Method

For green chutney

Combine all ingredients and grind to a smooth paste in a blender using very little water.

Lemon prevents discolouration of the chutney.

For tamarind chutney

Remove seeds from the dates and tamarind, wash and add one cup of water. Leave for two hours.

Boil this mixture for five minutes. Let it cool. Blend in a liquidiser and strain.

Add the chilly powder, cumin seed powder and salt. Mix well and your tamarind chutney is ready.

You can store this in a freeze for up to one week.

For basket

Heat four tbsp of oil. Sieve maida and salt together.Add the hot oil to maida and make a stiff dough using water.

Divide this dough into 15 equal portions.

Roll into thin rotis and prick with a fork all over.

Heat oil in a kadhai.

Grease the outside of a medium-sized steel bowl.

Take one roti, stick on the outer side of the bowl so that it takes the shape of the bowl. Press well.

Place the steel bowl in the kadhai, till it is deep fried. Remove the steel bowl as soon as the roti separates.

Fry the bowl-shaped roti to a light brown colour. Prepare all the katoris similarly and keep aside.

How to serve

Apply tamarind and green chutney on the inside of a katori. Then, place katori on a serving plate.

Place urad daal vada (bhalla), one tbsp of masala chhole, some potatoes and onions in it.

Pour three tbsp curd, one tbsp tamarind chutney and one tsp green chutney.

Sprinkle coriander powder, cumin powder and chaat masala on it.

Spread sev over the chaat and garnish with coriander leaves and pomegranate seeds.

-- The author works as a software professional with an American media house in Pune.

Do you have any recipes you would like to share? Post your recipes.

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