Pav Bhaji is one of the most well-known dishes in India. This delicious and flavourful recipe originated in Mumbai within the textile mill workers community in the 1850s. Due to their busy schedule and short lunch breaks, they often would miss out on having a full square lunch. To answer this conundrum, a vendor came up with the idea of replacing the roti with a pav and amalgamating the curries, vegetables, and spices into one calling it the “bhaji”. It became so popular that today it is one of the recommended street foods in Mumbai. Nutritious and light, this dish is easy and quick to make even at home. So, if you are interested in trying out your hand at making this dish, then here's the recipe.
Ingredients required for pav bhaji recipe
Make a list of the ingredients mentioned below and let’s get started. But do make sure that all the items that you take and fresh.
· 3 medium or 2 large potatoes
· 1 cup of cauliflower florets
· 1/2 to 3/4th cup of green peas
· 2 medium tomatoes
· 1 large onion
· 1 small to medium bell pepper
· 1 small carrot
· 2 cubes of butter/1 large spoon of ghee
· 1 tbsp of ginger-garlic paste
· 3 to 4 green chillies
· 1 tsp salt
· 1 tsp of turmeric, chilli powder and pav bhaji masala
· 3/4th cup of water
· 3/4th tbsp of kasuri methi
· 2 tsp of chopped coriander leaves
· Few drops of lemon juice
Adding colour to your pav bhaji recipe
A lot of people stress over achieving the orange colour of Pav bhaji, which is what restaurants serve. The bright reddish-orange colour is not really very difficult to get even when it is a homemade pav bhaji. All that you have to do is add an adequate amount of Kashmiri red chilli powder, the mild one. The other thing that you can do is make a red chilli paste and add it to the vegetable gravy. These are the two ways to get the colour naturally. Although one may add food colour, it is better to stick to natural ones as much as possible.
For the red chilli paste, take around 3/4 Kashmiri red chillies, remove the seeds from them and then soak them in a bowl of hot water for 20-30 minutes till they soften. Then drain them and make a fine paste of it in a blender.
Cooking procedure for pav bhaji
1. Keep certain ingredients ready; peel the potatoes and cube them. Cut out the cauliflower florets and the carrot and rinse the green peas.
2. Now get all these vegetables in a pressure cooker and fill the cooker with water just enough for the vegetables to boil. Now pressure-cook the vegetables till two whistles go off. However, remember sometimes even a single whistle works too depending upon the number of vegetables.
3. After the pent-up pressure is released, take out the vegetables. Once they cool down a little, mash them.
4. Now let’s move on to making the masala. Put a pan, add two cubes of butter and melt it. You may use ghee instead (one large spoon).
5. To this, add the chopped onions and sauté them till they go translucent. Once this is achieved, add half a tablespoon of ginger, garlic, and green chilli paste each. Fry everything well till they are thoroughly done and blended.
6. Now add the chopped capsicum and fry them for a few minutes. Then add the tomatoes and keep mixing the whole till it turns pulpy.
7. Now add the salt to taste, chilli powder, turmeric powder, and pav bhaji masala. Fry them for another few minutes.
8. Then add the mashed vegetables to this, followed by a quarter cup of water or as required.
9. Keep mixing well to achieve consistency in terms of texture and taste. Finish the whole thing with a little bit of Kasuri methi and a handful of coriander leaves. Before serving it, add a few drops of lemon to the bhaji.
10. Now slit the pavs from one side reaching up to till the mid-section. Add a dollop of butter to a warm pan and add a little bit of the pav bhaji masala to the butter. Toast the pavs on all sides making sure that they don’t burn.
11. For serving, you may add a little bit of chopped onion, coriander, and a dollop of butter into the bhaji and serve it with the pavs.
Recipes of different pav bhaji variations]
Now there are also many variants to this dish -
1. Cheese pav bhaji: The cooking procedure remains the same. Just dredge some cheese on top of the bhaji.
2. Fried pav bhaji: Here the pav is lightly tossed in the bhaji itself
3. Paneer pav bhaji: Here simply add some grated paneer cheese to the bhaji
4. Mushroom pav bhaji: Add sliced mushrooms to the bhaji
5. Khada pav bhaji: In this recipe, add some vegetable chunks into the bhaji
6. Jain pav bhaji: This one is made without onions and garlic
7. Kolhapuri pav bhaji: This one differs in the spices, for everything remains the same, just add Kolhapuri spices
8. White pav bhaji – this one is devoid of garam masala and chilli powder
How to make the best Bombay-style pav bhaji at home
The steps are fairly simple as laid out in the foregoing sections. The ingredients including spices will not change too. A few things that you need to know are – the cooking process, right after the vegetables hit the oil, happen faster. So, you need to pay attention to the heat so that spices don’t burn or vegetables don’t char. For the Bombay-style pav bhaji, it is essential to use the ‘pavs’ that are predominantly used across the length and breadth of Maharashtra. Finally, remember this dish requires you to be generous with the butter. Don’t ready the pavs before the bhaji is ready for serving, or else you will end up serving yourself with soggy pavs that have lost their crispiness acquired earlier from roasting.
Calorie count
Paav bhaji has around 390 calories.
Nutrition | Value |
Carbohydrates | 63 g |
Sugars | 11 g |
Dietary fibre | 9.4 g |
Fat | 11 g |
Trans | 0.2 g |
Saturated | 5 g |
Protein | 12 g |
Cholesterol | 50 mg |
Potassium | 813 mg |
Sodium | 589 mg |
The cooking process
The cooking process for a pav bhaji recipe is just concentrated in the bhaji-making process. It’s all about assembling all the vegetables and spices and blending them into one. All the ingredients are easy to find, including the spices. In addition to that, the cooking process is also very easy and simple to follow, even for someone new to cooking. The other part is just the bread or pav and readying it with some butter. Finally, the kitchen tools are also regular and few. It is a perfect recipe to commence your cooking journey if you are a newbie.
How to serve pav bhaji
Serving pav bhaji is another interesting thing. So, usually, the entire meal involves two pieces of bread and a bowl of bhaji. But it might surprise you to learn that pav bhaji can be actually served with many other things. To begin with, the most common item that complements a plate of pav bhaji is the Tawa pulao. This is something that is often considered at weddings and events. The other one is aloo tikkis. Anything that is made of potato is most likely to go with the pav bhaji famously—it’s a no brainer. Aside from these, one very interesting item that is also served with pav bhaji is the gulab jamun. The gulab jamun is served with the plate of pav bhaji or soon followed soon after. Another reason why pav bhaji is so interesting!
In conclusion, pav bhaji is one of the must-haves of the wide spectrum of Indian quick meals. This dish, largely associated with Indian street food from the state of Maharashtra, has transcended borders to attain country-wide popularity. And the best thing is that this famed Indian street food can be replicated in your kitchen anytime. So, come next weekend, try something new in your kitchen and let it be a pav bhaji recipe. Happy cooking!
FAQ
1) How old is the pav bhaji recipe?
It is at least a 150-year-old recipe
2) What do the street vendors use to make pav bhaji?
Instead of a shallow pan, the street vendors use a flat hot griddle to make the pav bhaji
3) What is the origin of pav bhaji?
Pav bhaji has its origins in the American civil war