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dine in WITH Mary Welp L A Delhi Snack These garam masala-spiced peanuts are about as far from roasted in the shell as you can get. 76 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 7.13 et's chat about chaat. I frst came across the word in one of Madhur Jafrey's early Indian cookbooks. By now the book is long gone, one of many I mistakenly lent to a scofaw who promised to return it but made of with it, moving not just out of town but out of the country. In the interim, Jafrey has written so many cookbooks I've lost count, but in every one of them she provides some version of chaat. Chaat began its career as a frittertype roadside snack served from food carts in the state of Uttar Pradesh in northern India. So enticing was its combination of sweet and savory spiciness that eventually it caught on not only all over India but all over Southeast Asia — and now, of course, over much of the globe. Just to make things extra confusing, you may or may not know of the fowering plant called chat (or chatt, or qat, or khat) native to the Horn of Africa. Its leaves, known for their properties of stimulation and euphoria, are chewed far and wide across that continent. Te frst Indian chaats were probably devised as a way of turning stale bread into something delectable. From there, chaats expanded to include potatoes, lentils, chickpeas and just about every other kind of vegetable. Tey all contain some version of the essential Indian spice mixture known as garam masala. If this tells you anything (and I think it should), the parent word for chaat, chaatna, means, in English, to lick. So no surprise, then, that chaat grew in popularity as a bar snack. It both absorbs the liquor and causes the boozer to drink more. I would be willing to bet that if more bars across town served chaat, it would take even longer to scoot patrons out the door. Sales would increase. Tips would skyrocket. I'm not advocating more addiction, just pointing out that chaat, like its African homonym, is addictive. And for me the most addictive of the chaats is the one made with raw peanuts. Boiled, not fried. Yes, this is somewhat related to a popular ready-made treat to be found at Trader Joe's — the Lime & Chile Mixed Nuts. While those will do in a pinch, with their key ingredients of lemongrass and kafr lime leaf, they actually lean more toward Tailand than India. Plus, um, you're just dumping them out of a plastic bag. Of course, there are much worse things to dump from bags, but Michael Pollan has reminded us at least a thousand times not to do this. So with that in mind, plus the fact that there is nothing like the aroma of these spices blended together, I am going to provide a recipe from one of my favorite places on the Internet — the super-low-tech, high-taste manjulaskitchen.com. I love Manjula Jain because she is the auntie we all want: calm, collected, quietly eager to show you how to make the basics. Te other thing about this recipe is that it works beautifully as a relish for summertime grilled foods. It's the ideal accompaniment, for instance, to tandoori chicken and rice or to any kind of grilled shrimp or fsh. Most of the ingredients in this recipe are now available in any grocery, the exception being mango powder, also known as amchoor. However, you should be able to fnd this in any Indian grocery store. If not, the suggested substitution for the powder is a teaspoon of lemon juice. If you fnd visual aids handy to view before you cook, you can watch Manjula whip up the chaat here: manjulaskitchen.com/2012/11/22/ peanut-chaat/