Sitaram ke Chole Bhature
If you grew up in or around Delhi, chances are you have eaten at or heard about Sitaram’s Chole Bhature. In the 80s and early 90s, when we were growing up, there was no competition. When I went back to Delhi as an adult, I learned from family and neighbors that worthy challengers had sprouted up in the newer Delhi suburbs. Some family members even claimed that the challengers were better, which is blasphemous as far as I am concerned.
In our home, chole bhature were a Sunday lunch tradition. Mom would ask my sister and me to walk down to Sitaram’s stall and pick up 3 orders of chole bhature. It was a short walk from our apartment on Wazir Singh street to Sitaram’s. The menu for Sitaram’s was short and to the point: he sold chole bhature. That’s it. Most days he would sell out by early afternoon and close up shop. If you didn’t place and pick up your orders by early afternoon, you were bound to leave empty-handed.
As you approached the stall, you would see a giant wok set on a burner on the sidewalk keeping the chole warm. Another giant wok contained the frying oil for the bhature. Most days, there would be a group of people waiting for their to-go orders.
The bhatura: puffy, pillowy, fried bread lined with a fine mince of paneer, dotted with green cilantro bits. Each order came with two, large bhaturas.
The chole: the chole, soft but not mushy, were served in an eco-bowl (long before that was a thing) made of dried leaves. The vendor would pour signature masala water on top and you could choose whether you wanted the chole with or without potato. With potato was the way to go because the soft, starchy, potato had absorbed all of the goodness of the chole spices during the cooking process.
The fixins: Each order included a side of carrot and green chili pickle. [Reema]
Reema: I dream of that carrot pickle to this day. Crunchy, spicy, tangy, deceptively simple taste but close to impossible to replicate.
Jeet: Last bites have always been important to me. Sometimes you got extra chole, sometimes the vendor was too busy to entertain your request. I would set aside a bit of bhatura with chole, a piece of pickle, a tab of chili as I finished the rest of the food. Then came the last bite, with each component, to finish it right.