All dishes

Aloo chop is a patty of spiced mashed potato jacketed in gram-flour batter and dropped into a wok of bubbling oil at the front of the shop. Nepali versions lean on garlic, dale khursani chilli and plenty of fresh coriander, giving them a greener, hotter edge than their Bengali cousins. They come out of the oil in a steady stream through the afternoon, eaten scalding hot with a smear of tomato achar and a glass of milk tea.

Aloo sandheko is boiled potato torn into rough pieces and dressed hard with raw mustard oil, chilli, lime and timur — the Nepali potato salad, and nothing like the mayonnaise kind. Sandheko simply means tossed or dressed, and the technique matters more than the recipe: everything goes in while the potato is warm enough to drink up the oil. It turns up as a side on Newar platters, as a filling for chatpate carts, and as a standalone snack with beaten rice.

Bhatmas sandheko is dry-roasted soybeans tossed while still hot with raw onion, chilli, lime and mustard oil, so the beans stay brittle but drink up the dressing. It is the classic accompaniment to a glass of raksi or beer in a bhatti, and a fixture on Newar feast platters in its plainer roasted form. Made well it should crackle audibly and leave a numbing trace of timur behind.

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.

Laphing is a cold, slippery sheet of mung bean starch cut into ribbons and drowned in a garlicky chilli-and-vinegar dressing. It travelled from China through Tibet and arrived in Kathmandu with Tibetan refugees, then took over the alleys around Boudha and Chabahil before spreading citywide. Vendors sell it white and plain, rolled around a soft filling, or in a fried version, and regulars order it by how much chilli oil they can stand.

Makai poleko is a cob of field corn roasted directly on charcoal until the kernels blister and blacken in patches, then rubbed with a cut lime dipped in salt and chilli. Vendors set up braziers on pavements and hillside laybys through the monsoon and into autumn, fanning the coals with a scrap of cardboard. Nepali corn is starchy rather than sweet, so it stays chewy and smoky — the lime and timur do the rest.

Pakoda is the standing order at every Nepali chiya pasal when the rain sets in — ragged clusters of onion and potato bound in gram flour and fried until they shatter. The Nepali version stays coarser and more onion-heavy than most, seasoned with ajwain and finished with a dusting of chaat masala the moment it leaves the oil. It is sold by weight, wrapped in newspaper, and never eaten without tea.

Known in Nepal simply as puri, this is the country's most sociable street snack: a hollow crisp shell cracked open, loaded with potato and chickpea, then dunked in cold spiced water and eaten whole before it collapses. Nepali vendors tend to pour a sourer, more herbaceous pani than their Indian counterparts, often with a hit of timur, and hand them over one at a time to a small crowd standing around the cart. Ask for dahi puri instead and the water is swapped for yoghurt and tamarind.

Sandheko wai wai takes a packet of instant noodles, crushes it unopened, and tosses the dry pieces raw with its own masala, onion, chilli and lime — no water, no stove. It is the default snack of Nepali student life, made on hostel floors and behind shop counters in about ninety seconds. Street vendors sell a scaled-up version by the bowlful, usually with a spoonful of dalmoth stirred through for extra crunch.

Sekuwa is meat marinated in mustard oil, timur and hand-ground spice, threaded onto skewers and grilled over open charcoal until the edges blacken. Roadside sekuwa corners from Dharan to Kathmandu build their reputation on the marinade and the fire, fanning the coals as the fat drips and flares. It arrives on a steel plate with beaten rice, raw onion and a lime wedge, and is meant to be eaten standing up while the next batch cooks.

Sel roti is a ring of sweetened rice batter poured in a single confident circle straight into hot oil, emerging crisp and glassy outside and springy within. It is inseparable from Tihar and Dashain, when kitchens across Nepal grind soaked rice for days and stack the finished rings shoulder-high. Bought from a roadside stall the rest of the year, it is the standard partner to a glass of milk tea or a bowl of aloo tarkari.

Swari-haluwa is the old breakfast of Kathmandu: flaky deep-fried wheat rounds served with a glossy semolina pudding heavy with ghee. Rooted in Newar shops around Ason and Indra Chowk, it is sold from steel trays from dawn until the batch runs out, often with a coil of jeri and a bowl of aloo-kerau tarkari to make the full set. It is unapologetically rich, and the whole point is to eat it standing at the counter with hot tea.