Bhelpuri
David Hadley
The first time chef David Hadley had bhelpuri, he was in India at Agra Fort with his mother four years ago. There, he saw a street vendor mixing up a chaat, or small snack, in a five-gallon bucket on the side of the road.
"Inside there were all these little plates with chaat masala mix, peanuts, tomato and more. He had a little mixing bowl in the bucket, too, and would shake it all together," said Hadley, who runs Samosa Shop in Denver. "That was my first time in India, and I was already thinking of flavors and food."
So, he shrugged off his mother's warning against eating it and he and his brother bought a small plate of bhelpuri. He loved it.
Now, the 29-year-old chef serves bhelpuri at Samosa Shop, a free-flowing concept he has at the farmers' markets around town. Hadley also provides prepared food and sauces to some independent grocery stores. While the name of the business features the dish samosa, and Hadley does serve that too, it's this salad that's his pride and joy.
"Bhelpuri is my inspiration for what I want people to try," he said. "It's supposed to be served tiny, but I serve it big because I think it's something to crush."
At the stand, Hadley makes his $9 bhelpuri with chopped cucumber, tomato, jalapeno, red onion, puffed rice, popped sorghum and long sev, a crunchy Indian snack made with chickpea flour that looks a bit like a short noodle. He also makes boondi, little fried balls of chickpea flour, salt and turmeric.
The rest of the salad, he said, depends on what's in season and available at the market. That means some days it's Palisade peaches, Rocky Ford cantaloupe or Hakurei turnips from the farmer across from him.
"My whole ethos is creating a community of people around you that can support you, and the farms around me have so much produce," he said.
Often Hadley will take the unsold produce at the end of the day to use in the salad. This gives his bhelpuri a true Colorado touch while still tapping into his south and west Indian roots and the nature of the dish.
"It's part of my chef-ness to utilize what's around me and knowing it's in season."
Hadley started cooking right out of high school, attending The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. He later moved to Colorado and worked at the Hotel Jerome in Aspen and later at the now closed Acorn in Denver. Eventually he started working with chef Biju Thomas to develop Biju's Curry Shop in Denver. Hadley also competed on the Food Network show “Chopped” in 2016, where he won $10,000. He took his winnings and went to Thailand, where he worked at Gaggan restaurant in Bangkok. Then he came back to Denver and launched Samosa Shop in 2020.
Aside from the ingredients, another aspect important to bhelpuri is how it's made. You can't simply stir it up, said Hadley. You have to shake it just right so the whole thing gets coated in the sauce, marrying the flavors. He does that with his own homemade sauces, a tamarind chutney, cilantro-mint chutney and yellow pepper sauce.
"When you see me toss the bhelpuri, it's so vigorous and hard. The rice is getting covered and the cucumber is getting beat down," said the chef, who eventually wants to make Samosa Shop a brick-and-mortar spot. "It's kind of messy, it's kind of fun, it's kind of wet and it's got that pizzazz, which is what makes it so special."
—Linnea Covington