Bikaji Aloo Bhujia

One of my regular bhujia suppliers, Foods of India, was out of Haldiram’s Aloo Bhuija. I was able to battle back from sadness because luckily they carry Bikaji’s Aloo Bhujia as well. The bag size was 14.12 oz (400g) for $3.99. The ingredients are potato, gram flour, lentil flour, tapioca starch, salt, mango powder, chili, ginger, black pepper, cardamom, cloves, mint and peanut oil. So once again, no gluten ingredients.The flavor is great. It’s a worthy substitute for Haldiram’s Aloo Bhujia. The Bikaji version has more spice to it but is very pleasant.

The Bikaji Aloo Bhujia is in sev form, kind of a smaller cousin to the pieces found in aloo Bhujia. They’re so tiny they seem like a food a child would’ve created. If you’re not familiar with sev, here is a great description from Tarla Dalal’s site.

The sev are basically fried noodles made from gram flour. Sev (noodles) are shaped with Seviya machine, a unique brass utensil equipped with different interchangeable disks. A fine-holed disk is attached to the container and filled with dough, which is then pressed into hot oil where it fries into crisp noodles.

Sev Puri

Source
Outside of regular snacking, sev is actually used frequently in savory Indian snacks known as chaat. There are tons of variations but basically you start with some type of fried base (like a samosa or puri). For example in bhelpuri sev is added to a mix of puffed rice, onion, tomatos, cilantro. Or in sev puri you add it on top of papdi, onions, tamarind chutney and lemon juice. Sev is a functional garnish that will add a nice kick to anything.