Pav Bhaji

Pav Bhaji is one of the easiest and tastiest dishes to make. It's a good choice if you are planning to have friends over and don't want to eat usual day-to-day food. Now I will mention here that I do purchase couple of things from a near by store since its easier and quicker to do it that way.

So Pav-Bhaji has two main components: Pav and Bhaji. If you are an Indian, its very likely that you know what Pav is. If you are not familiar with it because you have never been to India, its similar to dinner rolls. Since I live outside India and don't have access to the authentic Pav, I substitute it with dinner rolls. So this is something that I don't make myself and I rely on buying it from store.

Second component is Bhaji. A generic meaning of word is cooked vegetable (or just vegetable). So basically what it means is that we are cooking vegetables and eating it with dinner rolls. Beauty of this dish is that it doesn't restrict you to what vegetables you want to use as long as it can be meshed after boiling or cooking. Its a vegetarian dish but it is not vegan since it uses butter. I would not suggest skipping butter since it gives the dish an authentic taste.

With all this intro, lets see how I prepare it.

So depending on what vegetables you have available, you should divide them in two group: Those that are easy to mesh after boiling and those that get cooked very quickly.

For example, I have bell peppers for cooking without boiling since bell peppers get cooked quickly whereas I have Potatoes, Cauliflower, and Peas boiled and meshed. You can also add carrots and beans into the boiling group if you want. I usually don't add beans because they have a dominating taste that I don't prefer.

Along with these two groups of vegetables, you would also need Tomatoes, Onion (you can skip this if you don't eat onions), and Ginger.

With all the ingredients above, note that you should not skip Potatoes and Tomatoes. Tomatoes are main ingredient of the curry and Potatoes are important to bind all the vegetables together. For four people, here are the quantities I used:

• Potatoes - 2 large

• Cauliflower - one third of a large flower

• Bell pepper - one large

• Peas - 1 cup

• Ginger - 1/2 inch

• Onion - One small

• Tomatoes - 4 large

• lime - 1

You would need following spices (again for four people):

• Turmeric powder - half teaspoon

• Coriander power -One teaspoon

• Salt - 3 teaspoon (check as per your taste)

• Pav Bhaji masala - 4 teaspoon

• Kashmiri red chili powder - 3 teaspoon. Note that Kashmiri red chili is usually less spicy than usual red chili powder. It gives good red color as well. If you are using the generic red chili powder, you should use less than one teaspoon.

You can get all of these spices very easily at an Indian store if you are living outside of India.

Now let's move on to preparation

First of all get your "Boiling group" vegetables boiled and mashed. So that means you boil Potatoes, Cauliflower, Peas, Carrots etc in a pressure cooker with a little amount of water and mesh it once they are boiled. Keep this aside.

Put a pot on stove and melt half a stick of butter on it. I would suggest not using a non-stick pot because you would be meshing things as they are cooking. Once butter is melted, add the crushed ginger and cook it for couple of minutes on medium high. Then add the onions and cook them until they start turning translucent. At this point you can add bell peppers and start cooking them. As they turn soft, pick up your masher and start mashing them carefully. Once they are mashed, add Turmeric powder, Coriander powder, and red chili powder and cook the spices for couple of minutes. If you feel like spices are burning, you can add a little bit of water. Once these are cooked, add tomatoes and salt. Salt helps in cooking tomatoes quickly. Give it a stir and close the lid on the pot and let it cook for few more minutes. After around 5 minutes you should see all the tomatoes turned into a gravy. At this point stir it once more and add Pav bhaji masala. Give it one more stir and cook for 2 more minutes with lid on.

Now is the time to add all the boiled and mashed vegetables. Mix it well. Turn the flame to medium low. From this point onwards keep it stirring. Be careful since its too hot and small drops can get out of the pot. If gravy is getting thick, you should add some water. Overall you would need around glass and a half of water. Keep stirring it for around 10-15 minutes. The gravy should not be too thick but it should not be of flowing consistency as well.

Once this is done, squeeze a lime over it, mix it and put it aside.

Next thing we need to do is melt some butter on the pan, put a small cut in the dinner rolls and lightly toast them in the butter. Food is ready to be served.