Street Style Pav Bhaji

The first thing that comes to your mind when you read listen or imagine Pav Bhaji. for me it's emotion Pav Bhaji is a famous street food of Maharashtra and its available in over all the country. The Aroma of a pav bhaji can lift your mood as its rightly said good food good mood.

When I was young every restaurant are used to visit I only order for pav Bhaji it so frequently in my nearby restaurant that now the waiter doesn't even hand over the menu to me he simply brings a plate of pav Bhaji. isn't that an emotion you connect does that has ever happened to you? Do share with me your experience with pav Bhaji in the below comment box.

Pav Bhaji is nothing but it's a gathering of few vegetables who jumps into the cooker together for a boil and a blend of few spices which are sauteed to give you the best and aromatic flavors. Bhaji is accompanied by a piece of bread or pav. pav is then roasted with oil or butter on tawa and it's served with onions and piece of lemon.

There are different variants of pav bhaji available like, khada pav bhaji, black pav bhaji, green bhaji, and the famous Street pav bhaji.
Khada pav bhaji has the whole boiled vegetables which are not mashed like other variants.
Black bhaji has more of black spices like black pepper, Badi elaichi, star anise, etc which makes the color darker.
Green bhaji has the green vegetables in it and no red chilies are used. Even the tomatoes used are green in color, hence it's named as green bhaji

Whereas the street pav bhaji is the one which is more famous and loved by all. The pav bhaji tastes the best on the street side than in a restaurant. I used to stop by the pav bhaji thela whenever I used to feel like having street food. There are few restaurants that specialize in Pav Bhaji, but 'thelewale ki pav bhaji' is unbeatable.

I would like to share an incident with you all regarding pav bhaji. It was my first date with my fiancee on a Sunday evening. We both were hungry and wanted to eat something best as we wanted to make our date special. Being Sunday evening most of the restaurants were full. Finally, we stopped by a pav bhaji thela, the best part of it was, the sitting arrangement was done on a ground with a chatai or mattress. We were served the pav bhaji just as a restaurant serves it. It was just perfect, the moment as well as the pav bhaji.

So let's start making Street Style Pav Bhaji.

Ingredients:

For boiled vegetables:
1 cup Fresh Green Peas
1 cup Cauliflower florets
4-5 Potato cubes (Peeled)

For Red paste:
Whole Kashmiri chilies ( 6 -7 )
Garlic (7-8)
1 med chopped Red Bell Pepper


For Bhaji
4 Finely chopped onion
4 Finely chopped tomatoes
1 Finely chopped capsicum
1 tbsp crushed Garlic
1 tbsp Red chili powder
1/2 tsp Turmeric powder
3 tbsp Pav bhaji masala
1 bowl Boiled & mashed vegetable (cauliflower, green peas, potato, carrot(optional)
Butter / Oil
Salt to taste


Method:

1) Take 3 tbsp of butter/ghee/oil in a pan, saute onions, once the onions turn translucent add crushed garlic and cook till the raw smell disappears.
2) Now add capsicum. Cook for 2-3 mins and add tomatoes. Cook till tomatoes turn mushy. Mash this mixture with the help of potato masher.
3) For the red paste, add whole Kashmiri chilies to hot water and keep aside for half an hour. Chilies will turn soft, now add the soaked chilies, garlic and red bell pepper to the blender and make a smooth paste.
4) After tomatoes are cooked add red chili paste and let it cook for 2-3 minutes and let it simmer.
5) Add all the spices to the mixture. Give it a nice mix and let it cook for 4-5 minutes so that all flavors are absorbed.
6) Now add the boiled veggies to the pan.
7) Add water to adjust the consistency.
8) Add extra butter or cheese and coriander for garnishing. Serve hot.

Video: