This is one of the snacks you find on Indian railway station platforms, in markets and on busy streets. The vendors cook the potatoes in large shallow wok-like vessels over a gas burner. The potatoes are fried in oil in the middle of the pan and when they are almost ready they are moved out of the oil to the edge of the pan where they will stay warm until required. I don't have such a cooking vessel at home so I'm going to describe how to cook potato chat in an ordinary frying pan.
Ingredients
2 or 3 potatoes
2 tomatoes
1 small cucumber
1 small onion
Lemon juice
A small bunch of green coriander
Half a teaspoon of ground coriander seed
A pinch of red chilli powder
A large pinch of dried methi leaves
Black salt or ordinary salt
Oil
Peel the potatoes and chop them into 3 or 4 cm cubes. Put them into a hot pan with some oil, the spices and some salt (don't worry if you can't find black salt the chat will still be good). Stir to coat the potatoes in oil then cover the pan and turn down the heat a little. Cook for ten minutes, stirring once or twice.
Chop the tomatoes, onion, cucumber and green coriander and mix
together with perhaps a touch more salt. When the potatoes are ready, mix in
the methi leaves and leave them to cool just a little. You can either mix the
potatoes in with the salad, or spread the salad on a plate and put the potatoes
in the middle (it looks nicer this way). Sprinkle some lemon juice over the
lot and the potato chat is ready to eat.