In short: Most Indian street food is assembled, not cooked.
Bhel puri, sev puri and pani puri need no real technique if you buy the puris, sev and chutneys, while pav bhaji and vada pav take some work and samosa is a weekend project.
A small chaat pantry of chaat masala, two chutneys, sev and puris covers nearly all of them.

The snacks sold from carts on the streets of Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata look like they need a lifetime of practice.

Some do.

Many do not.

A street vendor is fast because the components are ready and the job is assembly, and you can work the same way at home.

Below are six favourites with an honest effort rating, so you know which to make tonight and which to save for a free Saturday.

The six, from easiest to most work

1. Bhel puri: easy, 10 minutes

Puffed rice tossed with potato, onion, tomato, two chutneys, sev and chaat masala.

Crunchy, tangy, sweet, a little hot.

It is the best first street-food dish because there is nothing to get wrong except timing: it must be eaten within minutes of mixing, before the puffed rice goes soft.

Bhel puri (serves 2)

• 60 g puffed rice (mamra), about 2 cups
• 4 to 6 flat papdi puris, lightly crushed
• 1 small boiled potato, diced
• 1 small red onion and 1 small tomato, finely chopped
• 1 green chilli, finely chopped (optional)
• 2 tablespoons of tamarind chutney and 1 tablespoon of green chutney
• Half a teaspoon of chaat masala
• 4 tablespoons of fine sev, plus a squeeze of lemon and chopped coriander
• A handful of roasted peanuts (optional)

1. Put the puffed rice in a large bowl.
   If it has lost its crunch, toast it in a dry pan for two minutes and let it cool.
2. Add the potato, onion, tomato, chilli and crushed papdi.
3. Add both chutneys and the chaat masala, and toss quickly with a spoon until everything is coated.
4. Top with sev, lemon juice and coriander, and serve straight away.

Keep a bag of puffed rice for bhel in an airtight tin and this becomes a five-minute snack whenever you want it.

2. Sev puri and dahi puri: easy

Sev puri is the open-faced cousin of bhel: flat papdi puris topped with potato, onion, chutneys and a thick layer of sev.

Dahi puri uses round hollow puris filled with potato and chutney and spooned over with sweetened yoghurt.

Both are pure assembly once you buy the puris.

Allow about 15 minutes, most of it chopping.

3. Pani puri or golgappe: easy if you buy, a project if you do not

Crisp hollow puris filled with potato or chickpeas and dipped in spiced, tangy mint-and-tamarind water, eaten in one bite.

Making the puris yourself is genuinely difficult: the dough has to be rolled thin and fried hot so every one puffs.

Buying ready puris and a pani mix turns it into a 20-minute dish.

Make the pani the day before if you can.

It tastes better cold and rested.

4. Pav bhaji: some work, one pan

A thick, spiced mash of vegetables, mostly potato, cauliflower, peas, tomato and capsicum, cooked down with a lot of butter and pav bhaji masala, served with soft bread rolls toasted in more butter.

The butter is the point, so do not cut it.

Allow about 45 minutes.

A Dutch soft white bun (zacht bolletje) is a perfectly good stand-in for pav.

For a quick version, a pack of ready-to-heat pav bhaji with buttered toasted rolls is ready in five minutes.

5. Vada pav: some work

Mumbai’s own snack: a spiced potato ball dipped in gram-flour batter, deep fried, and pressed into a soft bun with dry garlic chutney and a fried green chilli.

The filling is easy.

The deep frying is what makes it “some work”, and it takes about 40 minutes.

Make extra potato filling, because it keeps for a day and doubles as a sandwich filling.

6. Samosa: a project

Be honest with yourself here.

The filling, potato and peas with cumin, ginger and amchur, is easy.

The pastry and the folding are not.

The dough needs fat rubbed in properly for a blistered, crisp crust, the cone fold takes practice before it stops leaking, and the frying must start in oil that is only warm, then go slowly, or the pastry blisters and stays raw inside.

Allow two hours the first time.

It is very satisfying, but it is a weekend job, not a weeknight one.

When you just want a samosa, buying ready ones is no failure.

The chaat pantry

Six things make all of these work.

Keep them in and you can assemble street food in minutes:

1. Chaat masala: the tangy, salty, slightly sulphurous blend that makes chaat taste like chaat.
   A pinch on fruit or on plain potatoes works too.
   Buy chaat masala for street snacks before anything else.
2. Tamarind chutney: sweet and sour, dark and sticky.
3. Green chutney: coriander and mint, fresh and hot.
4. Sev: fine, crisp gram-flour noodles for the crunch on top.
5. Puris: flat papdi for bhel and sev puri, round hollow ones for pani puri and dahi puri.
6. Red onion: finely chopped, always fresh.

Chaat masala is not part of a beginner’s ten-spice rack, but it is the first spice worth adding after it.

For the rest, see the rest of a first spice rack.

What to buy rather than make

Street vendors do not make everything from scratch each morning, and neither should you.

Three things are better bought, and buying them is not cheating:

• Puris. Ready papdi and golgappe are crisp, uniform and cheap.
  Homemade ones take an afternoon and rarely puff as well.
  Pick up puris and papad in packs you can reseal.
• Sev and mixes. Fine sev is fiddly to make without a press, and a good bhel mix already has the crunch balanced.
  Keep a pack or two of sev, namkeen and bhel mixes in the cupboard.
• Chutneys. Tamarind chutney takes an hour of simmering and green chutney goes dull within a day.
  A jar of each from the shelf of tamarind and green chutneys keeps for weeks once opened and refrigerated.

Spend your effort on the fresh parts, the potato, onion, lemon and coriander, because those are what make it taste homemade.

Feeding a crowd

Street food is ideal for a party, because guests can build their own.

Set out bowls of puffed rice, papdi, round puris, boiled diced potato, chopped onion and tomato, both chutneys, sev, yoghurt, chaat masala and lemon wedges, plus a jug of pani for pani puri.

Make one plate of bhel to show people how it works, then step back.

Allow roughly 100 g of dry snacks per person.

The one rule: nothing gets mixed in advance, because everything goes soggy.

If you are planning a festive spread, our list for a namkeen-heavy Diwali table works the same way.

Shopping list

• Puffed rice, papdi puris and round golgappe puris
• Fine sev or a bhel mix
• Tamarind chutney and green chutney
• Chaat masala
• Potatoes, red onions, tomatoes, lemons, coriander and green chillies
• Soft bread rolls and butter for pav bhaji or vada pav

We deliver same-day across Nieuwegein, Utrecht, Leidsche Rijn, Vleuten, Maarssen, Zeist, Bunnik, IJsselstein, Vianen and Culemborg.

Delivery is a flat 2.49 euros and free on orders over 49 euros.

Two practical questions

Can I prepare bhel puri ahead for a party?

Prepare the parts, not the bhel.

Chop the vegetables and boil the potatoes in the morning and keep them in the fridge, and keep the puffed rice and sev sealed.

Mix each batch just before serving, because mixed bhel goes soft in about ten minutes.

What is the difference between papdi and golgappe puris?

Papdi are flat, crisp wafers that you crush into bhel or use as a base for sev puri.

Golgappe, also called pani puri puris, are round and hollow so you can crack the top and fill them.

They are not interchangeable, so check which one a recipe needs.

Start with bhel tonight, and work your way down the list.