These Kati Rolls are One of India's Best Street Foods | Street Eats | Bon Appétit

0:02 Oh my lord, we are in Delhi,

0:06 capital of India and one of the great food cities of the world

0:09 and one of the street foods that has become extremely popular is the kati roll.

0:13 Originally from Kolkata, but now just a fan favorite everywhere.

0:17 Absolutely delicious morsels of meat wrapped up in a flaky paratha

0:21 and then the magic trick is a layer of egg inside the paratha.

0:24 Behind me is New Zaika Kati Roll

0:27 Company famous for their butter chicken kati roll.

0:29 Here's what I love about this operation.

0:31 Every good street cart vendor has got to advertise what they do in an instant.

0:35 Here are your choices of what you want inside the kati roll.

0:38 It's the ultimate show and tell of the street cart business.

0:42 So come on in.

0:43 This is amazing.

0:44 I thought this was the whole operation.

0:46 Turns out there's a little kitchen back here.

0:48 It's like a little kati roll Narnia back here.

0:50 Let's go see what's going on.

0:51 You can see the chicken being skewered,

0:53 dark meat because you know it's going to stay

0:54 juicy even after being grilled at high heat.

0:57 So chicken skewer goes in the tandoori oven.

1:00 And This is a charcoal tandoori oven.

1:04 They're more and more rare as everybody's

1:05 working usually with a gas tandoori oven.

1:07 They both retain the same amount of heat,

1:09 but with the wood charcoal you get the aromatics.

1:12 Oh man, that is incredible.

1:13 The inside is lined with clay.

1:15 Once it's seasoned that clay retains an incredible amount of heat and it

1:18 uses a convection effect of air circulating

1:21 inside so that the meats are cooking.

1:23 Pulls it out every now and then and then puts it back in.

1:26 What he's doing is resting the chicken.

1:28 If you just leave it in there that intense

1:30 heat which is about 900 to 1000 degrees,

1:33 you're going to have chicken that's burnt on the outside and raw on the inside.

1:35 But when you pull it out and let it rest for a second,

1:38 it redistributes the heat.

1:39 This metal skewer gets hot also.

1:41 So obviously that's critical to cooking the whole thing

1:44 from the inside out and from the outside in.

1:48 Onto the flat top.

1:51 The jugaad here is evident of course.

1:53 They they they the McGuyvering as I like to call it.

1:55 You got your LP tank sitting right over here.

1:57 The gas line cutting across in front of the cook.

1:59 The range is essentially four bricks that this 50

2:02 lb slab of cast iron is sitting on.

2:05 So he just added some refined oil to help saute and sear

2:09 the chicken sort of giving it a little bit of a fry first.

2:11 Green bell pepper about to go in.

2:14 Next up, some onions.

2:16 This is turning into a whole dish.

2:18 So what he's made here is the base for the kati roll chicken.

2:21 This is the kati chicken.

2:22 This is his unique take on it to saute it with the onions.

2:26 One small piece, thank you.

2:27 It's about to go in my mouth.

2:33 That is a delicious bite.

2:36 Everything's customizable.

2:38 You can order the traditional kati roll filling and have him make

2:41 that with butter sauce or you can order just plain chicken tikka,

2:44 no oil and he's about to hit this with some butter chicken sauce.

2:50 That it looks amazing.

2:54 Not only is the chicken obviously getting cooked in the sauce,

2:57 the sauce itself is also getting cooked and caramelized in the griddle.

3:00 So you're going to get a really nice thick gravy

3:02 coated pieces of chicken so that it's not a sloppy mess.

3:06 Let's take a look and see how the paratha itself gets made,

3:08 the piece de resistance of the kati roll.

3:10 That's pure ghee that was just melted on the range.

3:13 Ghee is going to create flakiness putting a little

3:15 bit of flour in the middle so that the protein,

3:17 the fats have a chance to create that separation.

3:20 The constant folding and rolling is going to create these layers.

3:23 By rolling it up this way as they compress back down again,

3:26 the ghee ensures that they'll separate and puff back

3:29 up again when they're put on the flat top.

3:31 Everybody's got their own particular folding

3:33 technique almost like you would for dumplings.

3:35 This is cool.

3:36 It's the first time I've seen them made into a cone like this.

3:38 He's tucked the edges in obviously so that way when he

3:41 rolls it out the ragged edges don't display back out again.

3:45 To oh my lord, look at that.

3:50 That is so cool.

3:53 He's already created the layers in the inside

3:55 by creating the cone and now by pressing it down,

3:58 he's creating these additional layers.

4:00 My god, it's like a potter with a pottery wheel.

4:02 I mean they're beautiful to look at.

4:05 We're not in the fancy confines of a European patisserie.

4:09 This technique is on par with pretty much anything you'd see in a French bakery.

4:14 I love beauty in food.

4:15 It just accentuates everything.

4:17 Every time an order comes in, this gentleman's going to grab one,

4:20 roll it out and make a fresh kati roll.

4:23 So this is basically a tawa, a giant tawa.

4:25 When you look at the bottom of it, you can see the carbonization.

4:28 This thing's been around for a while,

4:31 but the surface is absolutely glassy smooth.

4:35 Some refined oil in the middle.

4:36 You're not quite frying it, you're griddling it.

4:38 It's trying to puff up a little bit

4:39 because remember you've got those layers in there

4:41 and they'll separate as the heat hits

4:43 the layers and the ghee inside starts to cook.

4:45 And this is going fast.

4:46 I mean look at the temperature on this.

4:48 Now you can see the signature striations already starting to form

4:51 in in the circle and that's you can see where it was rolled,

4:53 the way it was done.

4:54 And it's both obviously part of the texture of this paratha,

4:58 but also part of its signature look.

5:00 In order to be successful in this particular

5:02 diverse neighborhood of people from all backgrounds,

5:04 he is a customizable kati roll joint.

5:06 You can have it any way you want.

5:08 So if somebody wants an egg, he even has a double egg kati roll which is

5:12 just basically pure egg with some vegetables in it, scrambled.

5:17 Look at that.

5:18 Look at that.

5:21 Just right on the paratha.

5:23 Right, that's his mixing bowl right there.

5:29 That's so sexy looking.

5:31 You know that's going to taste amazing.

5:33 He's using the less cooked side of the paratha so

5:35 that the egg will stick to it when he flips it.

5:37 Whisks his eggs into essentially an omelet making operation

5:40 here and then he's going to pour the eggs out

5:43 of the paratha bowl onto the griddle making an omelet

5:47 and by putting it down on the raw side of the egg,

5:49 it's cooking from the bottom up,

5:51 but you know that the part where the paratha was still a little bit

5:53 uncooked in the inside is going to be absolutely soft and fluffy and delicious.

5:58 So I'm going to order my first kati roll

5:59 and given that this is the house of specialization,

6:02 the house of customization, I'm going to make it my way.

6:04 Egg butter chicken kati.

6:08 Or onions.

6:10 Or chutneys.

6:13 Single egg, double egg would be insane.

6:16 They probably think I'm insane for ordering single egg, but whatever.

6:19 The flip, the turn, the puff.

6:34 So I asked him to not overcook my egg cuz I'm

6:37 hoping the egg acts as almost like a that butter, that mayonnaise.

6:41 Ooh, come come come.

6:43 Butter chicken going on.

6:46 Shaved onions on the top.

6:49 Little bit of mayonnaise.

6:52 Some tasty Indian ketchup.

6:55 Some of that lovely mint and yogurt green chutney.

7:00 And a little bit of chaat masala.

7:02 My own personal kati chicken roll guy.

7:04 Wrapped up.

7:05 It's a very loose wrap.

7:07 Aw, thank you.

7:10 I feel like I should hold this up to the skies.

7:16 [music] You can see these layers of flakiness.

7:17 I mean very much like the the folds

7:20 of a croissant and then inside you can see that layer

7:22 of egg is perfectly all the way to the edges

7:25 so you don't just have a little egg on the inside.

7:27 When he flipped it over,

7:28 I saw it spread out and any egg that escaped the vortex,

7:32 he sort of tucked it back in to make sure

7:34 that none of that egg that I'm paying for is lost.

7:36 I don't even have to take a bite

7:37 to know that this thing's going to be incredible.

7:48 Oh my lord.

7:54 Oh my lord.

7:57 God dang, somebody needs to slap me silly.

8:00 This is incredible.

8:02 It tastes exactly how I imagined it would be.

8:04 [music] The butter chicken is moist, delicious,

8:07 tangy with that sauce and this flaky paratha,

8:10 I mean as you peel each layer back, it's just absolutely magical.

8:16 It's well seasoned also.

8:18 When you bite through, you can actually feel your teeth go through

8:21 the outer layer of a little bit of that crispiness

8:24 and that flakiness and then the inside is buttery

8:27 and warm and soft and almost melds with the butter chicken.

8:30 Really a great bite.

8:31 There's just no way you can go back to eating

8:33 a hot dog after this and feel like something special happened.

8:39 Chicagoans, don't kill me.

8:42 Every one of these street food experiences is just eye-opening and humbling.

8:47 To watch this man for 16 years perfect rolling out just a humble paratha,

8:53 but doing it with finesse and technique and pride.

8:57 As I always say, it's the people behind the food.

9:00 Their passion, their craftsmanship, their dedication, their discipline,

9:04 it just lights me up on the inside.

9:07 Number eight, double chicken tikka roll.

9:08 Egg chicken tikka roll.

9:10 Double egg chicken tikka roll.

9:11 Single egg double chicken tikka roll.

9:14 Double egg double chicken tikka roll.

9:17 Chicken malai tikka roll.

9:18 Egg chicken malai tikka roll and then double egg chicken malai tikka roll.

9:23 You know what?

9:24 I'm a little disappointed they don't have

9:26 double egg double chicken double malai tikka roll.

9:30 They probably ran out of room.