Sunday, June 5, 2011

Food walk in Old Delhi (Part 2)

I've been meaning to write this for a while; a continuation of the earlier Old Delhi food walk I did with my friend Dhruv. Somehow, there just hasn't been enough time to write. But yesterday, I was looking at my album of Old Delhi, and the photos brought it all back to vivid life.

After my morning visit to Dhruv's home, we walked to Chawri Bazaar Metro Station. We spotted this gentleman hard at work, at a little street restaurant near Dehati Pustak Bhandar:

Rolling out a bedmi.

What he is rolling out is a specialty poori called a bedmi, that's typically eaten for breakfast. It's the dough itself that makes the bedmi different from a regular poori. Apart from refined flour, the dough also includes mung dal (soaked and ground), chillies, coriander power and garam masala. So - basically - it's a spicy poori, and the dough has a rough consistency.

Deep frying the bedmi after the oil is hot. It will turn a golden brown soon.
Note the two ladles that he is using? I couldn't figure out why he had one ladle in each hand, until he made his next poori.

The first golden brown bedmi is set to drain while a second puri is added to the oil.
In the morning, there is a big crowd for breakfast; and bedmis are quickly made one after another. That's why they have the two ladles; one to fry, and one to drain. It speeds up things and keeps the bedmi crisp but not too oily.

The bedmis are served hot, with a simple aloo-sabji.
The poori is quite heavy, so by the time I ate one, I was stuffed. Don't forget, I had already earlier been pigging out on gol gappas, kulcha chole and milk cake :)

But Dhruv wasn't about to let me off lightly. In true Dilliwalla style, he said to me, "But you've got to try a nagori halwa!" The nangodi or nagori turned out to be a tiny puri, a little larger than a gol gappa.

Making a little hole in the nagori

You can stuff the nagori with the same aloo-sabzi if you want a savoury bite. But if you prefer something sweet for breakfast, you can stuff it with halwa instead.

Sweet halwa in the nagori

If you want, you can also mix the two tastes, sweet and savoury, by sstuffing with halwa and dipping the nagori into the aloo sabzi as well (not my thing!).

We ended the morning with sweet refreshing tea. I left Old Delhi in a happy state - great food, good company, and to top it all, I clicked lots of interesting photos (material for several more posts, thank you Dhruv!).

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

as usual very intersting. i think i will try the spicy poori. thanks. can u do a visit on a kumbakonam degree coffee and mylaopre elai vadams..[ if you really need elai vadams, my marathi maid does a great job now). arvind rangarajan tca

yrmama said...

I stumbled onto your blog recently and really enjoy your posts. This one was especially tasty!

Peenuts said...

Nice post :)

Dianne Sharma-Winter said...

Puri! how do I love thee? let me count the ways...delicious blog! Old Delhi for breakfast next sunday

Anonymous said...

Really good post!

Anonymous said...

I love the food in the walled city. it's totally unhealthy but yum and irresistible. One thing I love about Delhi is it's no pretension food.

Btw great blog !

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Deeba PAB said...

Delicious Delhi. I recently had the little puri with halwa in Purani Dilli and didn't know what it was called. What a yummy post this is.

Unknown said...

Hi Deepa

Superbly written and well clicked pictures. The poori at chawri bazar seems worth a try. I bet the breakfast joints in Delhi also serve some delicious and nutritious breakfast. Thanks for the wonderful treat

Unknown said...

I especially am grateful for the directions you give for each location (although your own Google Map, with all these locations marked out wouldn’t be half bad!)
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Unknown said...

Bring back old memories when i used to live in Old Delhi. Bedmi n nagori were our daily breakfast.

Unknown said...

Bring back old memories when i used to live in Old Delhi. Bedmi n nagori were our daily breakfast.

Unknown said...

Bring back old memories of old Delhi when i was used to live there.

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