Kachori

Kachori is a round, flaky pastry filled with spiced lentils and deep-fried until it puffs hollow and crisp. It's India's round cousin to the triangular samosa, and the two are genuinely different pastries rather than the same snack in a different shape — a different, shorter and flakier dough, a different filling, and a different way the finished shell behaves when bitten into.

What it really is

A dough enriched with a generous amount of fat worked in — shorter and flakier than a samosa's firmer, plainer dough — wraps around a filling of split moong or urad dal, cooked down with asafoetida, fennel and cumin into a dry, crumbly spiced mixture, quite unlike a samosa's usually wetter potato-and-pea filling. Sealed into a round parcel and deep-fried slowly over lower heat, the pastry puffs up with a distinct hollow pocket inside, the shell turning flaky and crisp rather than the samosa's firmer, denser crust.

Kachori is round and hollow-puffed where samosa is triangular and dense throughout. The lentil filling is dry and crumbly rather than the samosa's wetter potato mixture, and the dough itself behaves differently under the fryer — puffing with air rather than staying compact — so treating the two as interchangeable snacks misses what makes each one distinct.

How it's served

• Hot or at room temperature, split open and filled further with chutney, yoghurt or a spiced potato curry.
• With tamarind or mint chutney for dipping, if eaten plain.
• As a snack or light breakfast, common at street stalls and tea shops.

How to write it on the menu

• Flag the wheat.
• It's naturally vegan and vegetarian.
• Say if it's served plain or split and filled further, since the two are different portions and orders.

The ingredients, allergens and dietary notes listed here describe a typical recipe. They are not a binding declaration for any particular restaurant: recipes, portion sizes and the products used can differ.