Bhaji Cone – spiced, mix vegetable mash served in a cone

Gujarat’s Kutchh gave us all Dabeli, one the best loved street foods. From the same district comes this very popular Bhaji Cone simply put, instead of Bhaji moped with a Pav it is Bhaji in a cone. I have always believed that the street food vendors are the most efficient, enterprising and creative cooks ever, creating and serving us all some lip smacking dishes from  their teeni-tiny  spaces. These very ingenious thinking cooks have literally made Bhaji Cone  on the go. For someone not familiar with the Indian street cuisine, Bhaji is a spiced mash of vegetables cooked in a particular way. It is an extremely popular  street food of India.

During one of my frequent trips to Kutch I had made sure to try this out. That night it was pretty late and most had shut their kiosks with just the Baraf Golawalas ( crushed ice popsicle vendors) doing business as usual (the story of the ice golawalas who have taken the art of making and serving the humble crushed iced  to another level for some other time). There was this one vendor by the Hamirsar Lake still doing brisk business. We tried his Bhaji Cone, got chatting with him and understood how it was assembled. The Cone they serve the Bhaji in are deep fried just like poochka with tomato-chilli sauce going into the base and top during assembling. This was one dish I was so eager to recreate and showcase on the blog. It has taken  me 2 years to find time to do that 🙈. After relocating to Singapore,  I am in Ahmedabad usually during peak summers and peak winters- the summer heat of Ahmedabad compels you to take a sabbatical from elaborate kitchen chores while during  winters I would be caught up cooking all the winter foods with fine produce that throng the market. This February I had time to make Bhaji Cone and shoot it accordingly. The cones were made/baked to order by a neighbourhood bakery (pleasures of having old school bakers in vicinity) but you can trying frying Samosa Patti shaped as a cone or choose to make whichever way that suits you. Similarly prepare the Bhaji and the chutney to suit your taste.

The method to assembling the  Bhaji Cone is pretty simple and fuss free as explained in the section below.