Raj Kachori with Chhole / Puffed fried bread with spicy and tangy chickpea filling

Raj Kachori is a popular street-food in India. Back in my hometown in India there is a small hole-in-the-wall store that makes them the best I've ever had and these kachoris are definitely in the list of a few things that I do make sure to get my fix of whenever I am visiting. They are basically a crispy and flaky puffed fried round flat bread filled with a spicy and tangy chickpea filling and topped with different chutneys. They makes for an awesome and filling street food. I came across this recipe while I was going through one of my cookbooks from Sanjeev Kapoor. It immediately triggered all the memories and I knew I had to make it. The kachoris are a little tricky to make but you should be able to get it right in a couple of attempts.

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Palak/Spinach chaat

I vividly remember my first time going back to my mom's place or my "mayeka" from my in-laws place a few days after we were married (funny I started thinking of it as my mom's place as only a few days back I always referred to it as 'my place'). Being the first and the only son-in-law, hubby was being pampered big time with all the best dishes that mom knew that hubby liked. There was festivity, food, people coming to meet us and family sitting together and chatting away till the wee hours of the morning. It was an overload of good food and tons of fun. Among all that, hubby and I always found time to sneak out of the house to go walk around the city streets with the 'newly-married' tag painted all over our faces, shopping, talking about our favorite places and mostly stocking up on street food we knew we were gonna miss so much in a few days. 
The speed with which the local 'chaat walas' prepared their delicious goodies is just amazing. Apart from the regular favorites, there was always something new they had to offer. Spinach chaat was one of them. We both loved it.
Coming to the US, I was excited to see that the Indian restaurants also offered the basic chaat on their menu. Tried it at a few places but was rather disappointed as it did not come even close to the real deal. That is when I decided to do my own. I have posted the more common form of chaat before, the Aloo Tikki Chaat. This past weekend I got reminded of the spinach chaat and hence this post. This is kind of like papdi chat only palak pakoda is used in place of papdi, also it is very easy to make and a lot more healthier. Hope you guys like it as much as I liked making it and we did eating :)

Here goes-

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