Snacks & Street Food
Chatpate
चटपटे
Chatpate is puffed rice tossed to order with crushed instant noodles, raw onion, chilli and a hard squeeze of lime, mixed by hand in a battered steel bowl at the roadside. It is sharper and more sour than Indian bhel puri, pulled in a different direction by mustard oil and a pinch of timur that leaves a faint tingle on the lips. School gates, bus parks and evening pavements across Nepal run on it, and it is always eaten from a paper cone within minutes of being made.
- Prep
- 15 min
- Cook
- 0 min
- Total
- 15 min
- Serves
- 4
- Difficulty
- Easy
At the stove
Method
Have every component chopped and ready before you start — chatpate is assembled in under two minutes and cannot be made in advance.
Tip the puffed rice into a large, dry mixing bowl and add the crushed noodles.
Add the potato, chickpeas, onion, tomato, cucumber and green chillies.
Sprinkle over the noodle seasoning, chilli powder, timur and chaat masala.
Spoon in the mustard oil and squeeze in the juice of both limes.
Toss everything with a light hand or, better, with clean fingers, lifting from the bottom so the puffed rice stays whole rather than crushed.
Fold in the dalmoth and most of the coriander at the very last moment.
Taste for sourness and heat, top with the remaining coriander, and serve at once in paper cones while it is still crisp.
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