Street food is popular all over the world, be it a burger or golgappa. We all know that nothing can beat the variety of Indian street food. There are a number of delicious street foods that you simply cannot say no to. One of such foods is dahi bhalla. When it comes to this street food, one simply cannot forget the national capital. This snack dish can be found on all chat corners on the streets of Delhi. These urad-moong dal dumplings, soaked in creamy-thick yogurt and topped with tangy chutneys and fragrant spices are surely going to blow your taste buds.

The streets of Delhi are incomplete without dahi bhalla. This is what Delhi is famous for. But many people prefer to eat home-made dahi bhallas due to hygiene consciousness, freshness of ingredients and many other reasons. Getting to make this street food at home with the same kind of flavour is of course not difficult at all. You only have to follow the steps and few tricks to make them perfect. Here is the recipe:

Serves: 6-8

Preparation time: 30-45 minutes

Cooking time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

Moong dhuli dal: 1 cup

White split urad dal: ¼ cup

Oil for frying

Fresh yogurt: 1 ½ kg

Salt to taste

Red chilli powder: 2 tsp

Roasted cumin powder: 2 tsp

Tamarind chutney as required

Coriander-mint chutney as required

Method

Wash both the lentils thoroughly. Soak them in plenty of water for five hours. Make a fine thick paste of the lentils together in a food processor without adding water. Transfer the paste in a big bowl and whisk it with an electric beater until fluffy and double up in quantity. Add salt just before frying and mix well. Heat oil in a pan for frying. When it is perfectly hot for frying, put small portions of the lentil paste with the help of an ice cream scoop in the oil to give them a perfect round shape. Fry until golden brown.Take out on a kitchen towel. Let them cool. Soak the bhallas in plenty of water and refrigerate until you serve them. While serving, take them out from the refrigerator and squeeze the water. Place the squeezed bhallas in a serving dish. Pour the sieved yogurt generously on the bhallas. Sprinkle little salt, red chilli powder and cumin seed powder on top. Pour both the chutneys according to your taste. Bhallas are ready to serve.

To make tamarind chutney: Take 200 grams of whole dry raw mango strips. Wash them thoroughly and soak them in two glasses (500 ml) of water for three hours. Pressure cook it with the same water. Give one whistle on high flame and then simmer on low flame for 20 minutes. Turn off the flame. Let the pressure come out. Open the cooker and let it cool. Grind the boiled dry mango with its boiled water to a fine paste in a food processor. Sieve it in a soup strainer. Discard the residue in the sieve. Mix 500 grams of sugar and one teaspoon each of white salt, black salt, red chilli powder, garam masala and roasted ground cumin seed into the dry mango strained pulp. Mix well. This chutney is ready. You can add more sugar and salt if required. The chutney should be sweet-sour and spicy.

To make coriander-mint chutney: Pluck mint and coriander leaves from their stems. Wash them thoroughly. Grind them in a food processor to a fine paste adding little salt, few green chillies and lemon juice.

Tips to make soft bhallas

Use both the lentils –urad and moong dhuli (skinless split urad and moong lentil). This combination will help to make perfect bhallas.

Wash the lentils thoroughly until you get clean water. Soak them together in plenty of water for at least five to six hours or overnight. When the lentils are soaked properly, the lentil paste becomes perfect for bhallas after grinding without adding water. Grind the soaked lentils in a high-speed food processor without adding water to get a thick paste. The paste should be very thick but it should also be of dropping consistency.

Whisk the lentil batter for 15 to 20 minutes until the paste becomes fluffy and becomes double in quantity.

The oil for frying should be hot enough to swell up the bhallas. However at the same time it should not be so hot that the dumplings get burnt. To check for the right temperature of the oil, put a drop of the dal paste in the hot oil. If it floats back to the top instantly, the oil is perfectly hot for frying. But if the drop of paste sinks, wait for few more minutes to get the oil appropriately hot. Fry the bhallas golden brown.

Do not overcrowd the dumplings for frying in the oil. Leave adequate space for the bhallas to swell up.

Do not blend the yogurt in a food processor. It will make its consistency very thin and runny. Always sieve it in a soup strainer. It will make the yogurt thick and fluffy.

Follow these tricks and tips to make perfect dahi bhallas at home.