Mamta - wonders will never cease! Always find something great each time I log on. Made the Chat Masala to sprinkle over a simple tomato and red onion side salad with lemon vinaigrette. Wow! It really lifted it to another level. Perhaps the secret ingredient being citric acid (Sorry Kavey!)

Winton, try it on a mixed fruit salad, it is called Fruit Chaat in India and it is a popular street foods of India.

It is also good in Raitas.

Mamta

I use a different recipe from the one Mamta gives, though mine is called tandoori chat masala. It has no citric acid, but pomegranate seed powder instead, this contains malic acid, I think, and is similar to citric acid, but not quite as tart/sour. Also, my chat masala has dried methi leaves and dried mint, together with the essential black salt and hing.

It makes tandoori chicken taste meatier when sprinkled on the pieces, just after they are cooked, and surprisingly, very good on fruit salad. I don't know why, but it really brings out the flavour of the fruit!

Maybe I will post a list of ingredients when I find it again ;?)

Please note, chat masala is a flavoured salt, it is not like garam masala!

Why not write a full recipe Lapis, I am happy to add it here.

Mamta

Winton

Please can you give me the link for the Chat Masala?

Cheers

Steve

SteveAus I think its this one Chat Masala - A Hot Spice Mix for Chaat

Steve

Which I might add has listed in the ingredients -

"1 tbs. dry mango powder or amchoor/anardana or pomegranet powder " which sounds similar to what Lapis has said about the Fruit Chaat one above.

Steve

Mamta, I'll have to find it first, but I will do that.

Plese note, chat masala and Tandoori chat masala are different things. However, it seems they both add something extra to fruit salad, it would seem.

I would only worry about adding uncooked methi leaves to a fruit chat, rest of ingredients are quite similer. I am not sure how methi leaves will taste.

Mamta

Methi leaves (and seeds) contain a substance called sotolone. Wiki says

"Sotolon (also known as sotolone, caramel furanone, sugar lactone and fenugreek lactone) is a lactone and an extremely powerful aroma compound, with the typical smell of fenugreek or curry at high concentrations and maple syrup, caramel, or burnt sugar at lower concentrations."

It was the source of 'synthetic' maple syrup flavourings at one time, so I am sure this is one reason that it goes well with fruit flavours.

Thanks for the tips about Fruit Chaat. What an easy starter for dinner parties! Good for me too as have always been far more diligent in eating veggies than fruit.

Found the chaat masala also now an essential condiment if having boiled eggs for breakfast!

I love Chaat Masala. It is good in salad dressings too.

Oh that wonderful evergreen chaat masala. I use it in chickpeas and meat currys, tandoori chicken and of course fruit salad.

But occasionally I use with fruits not chaat masala but Dabur's Lavanbhasker churna (natural ayurvedic cure for indigestion)..believe me this churna has the ZZZIIING and goes well with fruits specially citrus, apple, pineapple etc.so you get taste and cure for indigestion(if any)...but don't overdo it. Cheers!!!!

Oh, I had forgotten about Lavanbhasker Churna, we used to have it all the time in my youth, a million years ago!