Aloo Bhujia or Aloo Sev with step-by-step photos. These are crispy, spiced, tangy, and light-textured sev made with boiled potatoes, gram flour (besan), spices, and herbs. They make for a nice tea-time snack and can be easily made at home.
About Aloo Bhujia
One of the most popular Indian snacks is that of Aloo Bhujia. You get them in packets, tins, and even in many snack and sweets shops all over India.
Bhujia, specifically the Bikaneri Bhujia is a crispy snack made with gram flour, moth bean flour, spices, and seasonings. This snack consists of thin fried vermicelli strands made from the dough of these lentils flours, and spices and originates from the city of Bikaner in Rajasthan state in India.
Bhujia is a general name for this snack and it also includes a few variations like this Aloo Bhujia which has potatoes as one of the key ingredients.
The recipe for this Aloo Bhujia was shared with me by my sister. I made a few changes in the proportion of her recipe and made these crunchy Potato Sev.
These Aloo Bhujia are spiced but not spicy. They are also crispy, tangy, and full of flavors – which we call chatpata in Hindi.
To make these Aloo Bhujia, besides potatoes, you need gram flour, some ground spices, and herbs like Mint.
It is the mint leaves that bring in so much of herby minty flavor in these bhujia. The tangy taste comes from including chaat masala and dry mango powder.
I made a small batch. But this Aloo Sev recipe can be doubled or tripled as the ingredients are proportionately taken.
Since you can easily store them in an air-tight container for a few weeks, so making a big batch is a good idea.
You can also adapt and customize the recipe by adding your preferred spices, herbs, and seasonings. This bhujia recipe does not have onion and garlic. You can opt to add some garlic paste or onion powder if you like.
Serve Aloo Sev as a tea-time snack or anytime snack. You can even garnish your upma, poha, rice-based dishes with this spiced and tangy Bhujia.
How to make Aloo Bhujia
Cook Potatoes
1. First boil 2 medium-sized potatoes till they are thoroughly cooked. You can cook the potatoes in a pressure cooker in a steamer pan or the Instant Pot.
For pressure cooking, take the rinsed potatoes in a 2-litre stovetop pressure cooker. Add water just about covering the potatoes.
Pressure cook for 3 to 4 whistles on medium heat. When the pressure drops on its own in the cooker, then only remove the lid.
Remove the potatoes with the help of tongs and set aside to cool.
2. When the potatoes become warm, peel and mash them very well with a vegetable masher. There should not be any chunks or small pieces.
Let the mashed potatoes cool at room temperature.
3. Heat a pan and add 16 to 18 mint leaves. You can rinse the mint leaves and then add them.
4. On a low heat stir and roast the leaves till they wilt and become crisp. Remove and crush the mint leaves in a mortar pestle to a fine powder. Keep aside.
This step is to dry the fresh mint leaves. If you have dried mint leaves, then you can add ½ teaspoon of dried mint leaves. Crush them and add them when you make the bhujia dough.
Make Aloo Bhujia Dough
5. To the mashed potatoes, add the following spices:
- ¼ teaspoon turmeric powder
- ¼ teaspoon garam masala powder
- ½ teaspoon red chili powder
- ¼ teaspoon dry mango powder (amchur powder) or ¼ teaspoon lime or lemon juice
- ⅓ teaspoon black salt
- ½ teaspoon chaat masala
For a spicy sev increase the quantity of red chili powder.
6. Mix well and add the finely crushed or powdered mint leaves.
7. Now serve 1 cup besan or gram flour directly over the potato mixture.
8. Here is a photo of the sifted gram flour.
9. Gently mix and start forming a dough. There is no need to add any water while kneading the dough.
The moisture from the potato is enough to bind the dough. Else the dough will become very sticky if you add water. The dough is just slightly sticky.
10. Make a smooth dough. Cover the dough and keep aside.
Tip 1: If the dough is very sticky, then add a few tablespoons of gram flour.
Tip 2: If it looks dry then add 1 to 2 teaspoons of water.
11. For making aloo sev, you need to use sev press. Choose the disc with the small fine holes.
Grease the top of this disc with some oil. Also, spread some oil all over in the cylindrical jar of the sev maker or sev press.
12. Rub a bit of oil in your hands. Roll the dough into a log and gently place it in the sev maker jar. Reserve a tiny piece of the dough to test the oil temperature.
13. Cover the sev maker with its lid.
Fry Aloo Sev
14. Heat oil for deep frying in a kadai or pan. Add a tiny piece of the dough.
If the dough comes up gradually, then the oil is ready. If the dough sits at the bottom, the oil is still cold. If the piece of dough comes up briskly and quickly, the oil is too hot.
15. When the oil is ready and moderately hot, directly press the sev maker to make aloo sev. Move-in rounds so that the sev is evenly distributed.
Be careful when doing this as the oil will be hot.
16. The oil will start sizzling as soon as the sev comes in contact with it.
17. When the dough firms up, looks separate, and is lightly crisp, gently turn it over with a spider spoon or slotted spoon and fry the other side.
18. Keep on frying them till the sizzling reduces in the oil and the color of the potato sev changes to golden.
19. Do flip a couple of times, to get an even color.
20. With a large strainer spoon, remove the fried potato sev from the oil. Drain the excess oil back in the pan, by shaking the spoon.
21. Place the fried Aloo Bhujia Sev on kitchen paper towels to absorb extra oil.
22. When they are still warm, to make them more chatpata, sprinkle ½ to 1 teaspoon of chaat masala or more if you like.
Once cooled, store all sev in an air-tight jar. These keep well for a few weeks.
Fry the potato sev in batches this way using up the entire dough. Regulate the oil if needed while frying the bhajia.
23. Serve these crispy Aloo Bhujia as a snack during festivals or a tea time snack.
