The battle of pinds

Every Sunday at 10 am a shrill cycle bell rings Amid the vegetable and fruit vendor carts outside my home stands Sharma uncle with a dabba full of chole and kulcha masaledaar paratha luring groggy residents to come down and take a portion of his freshly made snack Chaalis saal se bana raha hoon he says his smile hidden behind a bushy white beard He fills the silver pudi disposable dish with dark brown geele chole tops it with a spoon of green chutney tamarind chutney and pickled carrots handing it to me with two kulcha breads This is when the kitchen gets the day off because I am going to tuck into a delicious streetstyle Ravivaar brunch Sharma uncles homestyle Amritsari version is my favourite The chickpeas are cooked in soda giving them a mashedup textureIn Delhi chole a spicy mixture of chickpeas and potato is served with either kulcha or bhatura large fried puris Its the highest selling dish at Haldirams outlets across the capital And it has street spinoffs too At almost every corner stands a chole vendor with a circular copper vessel inclined on a stand doling out affordable breakfast and lunch to patronsNand Di Hatti in Sadar Bazaar of old Delhi sells a chole thats cooked in desi gheeParesh Gupta a food blogger whose Instagram handle Khaata_Rahe_Mera_Dil is the home of mouthwatering delights rattles off a list of the best places in Delhi to try chole including the dry Pindi version at Kwalitys to the muchhyped Sitaram Diwan Chand plate in Pahargunj But he promises that the best one youll taste is at Nand Di Hatti in Sadar Bazaar of old Delhi We ask if he will take us there Humein toh bas bahana chahiye we only need an excuse to head thereWe meet outside Gate 5 of Chandni Chowk Metro station and amble towards Sadar Bazaar Google maps cannot keep up with the snaking lanes packed with autos cycle rickshaws and handcarts It reroutes a couple of time before I realise it is better to ask for directions Sadar Bazaar is Delhis popular wholesale market and Nand Di Hatti they tell us is located right after Khari Baoli Asias largest spice market Between sneezes we try following the aroma of roasting masalas and spot a small crowd concentrating on their platesBlogger Paresh Gupta swears by Nand di Hattis chole puri PicsNishad AlamNand Di Hatti is an 80yearold shop started by Nandlalji Today two outlets stand in place of one run by two brothers who have split Nand Di Hatti and Nand Bhature Wale Di Hatti We get a plate from the first It comes with a bhatura stuffed with paneer and since it is still chilly the pickle is made of awla Ankur Makkar the fourth generation owner says Sab desi ghee mein banta hai Its all cooked in ghee Our specialty is the aloo in the chole The potato and chole have absorbed the masalas to become a gheeladen flavour bomb He points to the pickled green chilli we are ignoring on the plate Teekha nahin hai Try karo It has a punch of mustard oilAt Nagpal Chole Bhature in Lajpat Nagar the chole is a cross between Amritsari and Pindi with a thick gravy but a milder play on the masalaAt Nagpal Chole Bhature in Lajpat Nagar a vendor sits by the stove frying crispy bedmi puri with an inner lining of paneer The stall that has been around for 25 years opens every day by 730 am and runs out of supplies by 3 pm Here the chole is a cross between Amritsari and Pindi with a thick gravy but a milder play on the masalas compared to NDHs saltier rustic one Our visit to Gianis which came highly recommended by residents of the capital is a flop but Kwalitys chole at Connaught Place gets our voteIn Mumbai weve devoured the chole and largerthanlife bhatura at Marine Drives Cream Centre which over the years has lost its charm say regulars despite an interiors revamp At Taftoon weve tried it as chef Milan Guptes appetiser chotey choley kulcheOn my last visit to Mumbai I had requested Gogi Singh of Dadars iconic Pritam da Dhaba to accompany me on a trip to Sion Koliwada the 73yearold camp that housed refugees of the Partition Here in the olden days there used to be community tandoors for families who lived in 80 to 100 square feet homes to come outside and cook their rotis and kulchas together They dont exist anymore says Singh sharing that Punjabi food was alien to Mumbai until the refugees made the city their home cooking indigenous dishes which everyone came to loveManjeet Chole Puri Wala at Sion Koliwada offers basic seating in an enclosure A team of cooks are clapping dough between their palms pasting the kulchas along the walls of the tandoor Soon these will emerge roasted and steaming Others are being slipped into hot oil in a kadhai to make bhaturas Owner Surendra SinghNagpal mans the counter filling plates with Amritsari chole before passing them on to a helper who drops in a pile of onions and pickleJust like any Indian dish that changes from region to region home to home so does the chole A thick and drier version without onion and garlic is how its made in Rawalpindi The gravy version comes from Amritsar At the end of the day everyone finds and eats the version they like Nagpal says before sharing an insiders nugget While lazy cooks acquire the deep brown by adding tea wrapped in mulmul pouches into the gravy the real deal is achieved with dried awla Many restaurants dont use it because it is costly he adds recommending we try a plate at Ghasita Ram at Lamington Road They serve it with a sweet chutney and peethiwali puri made of urad dal Nagpals father Manjeet Singh started the shop in 1964 after moving to Mumbai from Amritsar He urges us to try a bowl of their chane ka soup made from the same white chickpeas but with an addition of 22 freshly ground masalas The dark murky broth is light has the punch of spices and is a great nutritional drinkSantacruz casual dining eatery Tamak is headed by Vikram Arora a Dilliwala who says that Mumbai prefers the chole runny Often the Amritsari version is made here without onion and tomato in mustard oil and with added soda to soften the chickpeas The Pindi style is more layered The chickpeas are not mushy have a clean bite and are mixed with ground masala onions and tomatoes Oil in which garlic is burnt is strained and poured over the mixture before it is cooked on dum The water from the boiled peas is added gradually to the final mix to keep the chole wet At Tamak Arora says We add coarsely ground pepper to give our version a spice kick Awla is used to give it a dark colour and ensure the skin of the chickpeas doesnt peel off The khatta chutney is made with tamarind and we serve the dish with crispy kulcha and a generous helping of gheeI get a taste of Mumbais version in a plate of samosa chole at a chaat stall in Andheris Lokhandwala market The watery version comes with a tomatoonion gravy and the loud presence of garam masala Paired with the crispy samosa it is delicious in a Bambaiya kind of wayTo each his ownCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and also a complete guide on Mumbai from 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