Palak Chaat/ Indian Snack/Starter | Gayathiri's Cookbook

During summer, we were in Washington DC, and I was searching for an Indian Restaurant nearby. My son told me about an Indian restaurant named “Rasika”, which was one of President Obama’s favorite restaurants

I browsed through the menu and saw some interesting dishes and Palak chaat made me curious. I ordered it crossing my fingers, hoping my food critic family would like it. After having a bite we couldn’t resist the temptation to eat more. We tried different dishes from the menu.

The quality, presentation, and service explained the class why a president would like to dine there.

I always take a picture of the food that I love, so that i will remember the taste and the texture whenever I browse through those pictures later. As a foodie family, we all enjoyed this restaurant’s food, and I was waiting for the right moment to recreate those dishes.

I had a conversation with the the staff over there and came to know about Chef Vikram Sundaram. I searched for his recipes online but unfortunately couldn’t get the right one.. There were very few online recipes which people tried, but they were not even close to what we tasted.

I tried to recreate these signature dishes for my family. The Palak chaat that I made came with the same consistency & texture, that my family loved and approved. This will be one of their favorite during these holidays.

The key to the dish is to fry the spinach to the right crunchiness. The batter should neither be too thick nor too thin. Tamarind date chutney, Green chutney and fine sev are easily available in all Indian stores.

This Palak Chaat can be served as a snack or as a starter as well.

Ingredients:
Besan flour - 4 Tablespoons
Rice/Corn flour- 2 tablespoons
Salt- 3/4 teaspoon
Red chilly powder- 1 teaspoon
Spinach leaves-2.5 cups
Oil- for frying
Thick curd/ Greek yogurt-1 cup
Sugar- 1 teaspoon
Onion-1
Tomatoes-2
Tamarind and dates Chutney- 1/2 cup
Green(Coriander and mint) chutney- 1/2 cup
Fine sev- As needed


Directions:
1. Take besan flour, rice flour, salt and red chilli powder in a bowl.
2. Add water in intervals to prepare a smooth batter. It should be thin and runny.
3. Stir the spinach with the batter. Make sure all the leaves are coated with the batter.
4. Heat oil in a flat bottomed pan. Fry the battered leaves few at a time until crispy. Do not crowd them
5. Place the fried spinach on the serving plate.
6. Add 1 teaspoon sugar to 1 cup of yogurt and pour 2 teaspoons of yogurt on top of spinach leaves.
7. Top with 2 teaspoons of onion, tomatoes, tamarind date chutney, green chutney and fine sev . You can increase or decrease the quantity according to your liking.


Palak Chaat is ready to serve!!