i am a "small town" girl and will always be. but moving to mumbai made me want to blend in - immediately. the energy, the bustling cars and the ever-running local trains....the city was magical for my small-town mind. thankfully, blending into the mumbai crowd isn't very difficult - you get transformed within weeks, its almost like the city takes over your soul and turns it into this practical, street-smart, ready-to-do-ANYTHING-to-succeed vortex of strength.
one of the most obvious things in mumbai is the street food - while my small-town parents have always rescued me from eating any street food at all - WHAT? YOU WANT THAT BACTERIA INFESTED DELICACY? no, come back home and i'll cook something wholesome for you! Yes, that was my childhood. this sudden freedom of eating whatever you want made life surreal for me. street food in mumbai was my favorite part of living in the city - every nook has its flavor, every suburb has its speciality and every vendor his own special touch (yes, pun very much intended!) and most importantly, every time you think that you've tasted it all, up comes something new and exciting!
my very first foray into this street food was perhaps my second week in mumbai, my mother having just gone back after ensuring that life would be ok for me without her. the new freedom, the scant money in my shallow pockets and the bracing sea air got me super advernturous and there i was - ordering pav bhaaji at the street corner where i now lived. while i made faces at how unhygenic the whole process looked, i could not help but feel embarassed at the unabashed groans that my stomach was offering up for all in the near vicinity to hear.
soon enough, heaps of bhaji (medly of mish-mashed and deliciously pan fried veggies) and a couple of pav (dinner rolls, the likes of which only a mumbai baker can make!) made their way into my plate. garnished with coriander and fresh cut onions, this whole thing just was pure heaven. my trials into making this pav-bhaji have been many and finally i have chanced upon a combination that yields - EVERY SINGLE TIME!
i now use this magical combination everytime i want to cook my way into my mumbai-ya man's heart and earn the look of - oh, i love you for making me taste this again!
so here goes.
true and authentic pav-bhaji needs a ton of butter - please, oh please keep your diets at bay. if you want taste, just don't think and bring on that whole stick of butter. yes, the whole big, entire stick of butter.
once it starts swimming in ur pan, add 2 chopped green peppers or as we call them - capsicum! (for a change, i am going to add measures of food - it makes a lot of difference how much of what you add here. but of course, my measurements are going to be very authentically mine - metric and other systems, please excuse my kitchen!)
when these become softer, add grated (yes grated!) ginger (1 cube of ginger ought to do - well, 1 cube about an inch long) and then grate in 5-6 cloves of garlic. there, you already have most of the important bits cooking away.
meanwhile, get some potatoes (5-6 medium sized - now this is the american medium size! indian sizes are 2 sizes smaller when you compare to american veggies - i can feed a family of 4 on half a dozen american oranges!!) and boil them till they are soft as mush. meanwhile, the green peppers in the pan should have now turned translucent and pale...this is the time to chop up one head of cauliflower and 2 big carrots and add them to the pan.
let the veggies cook for about 5 minutes and at this point, already add in the pav bhaji masala. i use everest and now for the second important part after the butter - ADD A TON OF THIS MASALA!! don't please be skimpy on taste.
i don't add peas to my pav-bhaji and never will. i find that they give a sweetish taste that i really don't call authentic. no peas! and definitely no onions - for similar reasons.
once the veggies look almost cooked - you may need to stir frequently and add a bit of water to cook these through, add in the peeled & boiled potatoes.
now comes the part where my muscles take over - use a potato masher and mash all the veggies together till they are a close mish-mash and you can't recognize one from the other! you may now add salt and taste. yes, big important factor still missing - where are the tomatoes, you ask! well, they are too expensive to get the right taste, so i find that adding a whole tin (the small 12 oz one) of hunt's tomato paste does just the right thing for me. let the tomato paste and the masala cook in the mash for a good 15 minutes. if you use a different kind of masala or a different brand of tomatoes, you may want to taste every so often to balance the tanginess from the 'matoes with the spice and zing from the masala.
and there you have it.....bubbling and boiling in front of you will be a big happy pot of pav-bhaji.
the thing that adds the most authentic flavor to this dish, is the crustiness of the pav. get laadi pav (so called, because they are baked in slabs - ready to sink your teeth into) and without adding any butter to these, grill them on a grill pan. let these get nice and brown and crispy. now break into these bits and sink them down deep in that delectable zingy-tang of the bhaji and your mouth will suddenly explode with the thoughts of ---- ahhh! mumbai again!
PS: pictures to come soon. promise! but i do have a video from an actual-rekdi cook who shows you how he makes his pav-bhaji. my version is a dedication to this artiste! the guy hosting the video also gives us an interesting take on the history of this dish.
one of the most obvious things in mumbai is the street food - while my small-town parents have always rescued me from eating any street food at all - WHAT? YOU WANT THAT BACTERIA INFESTED DELICACY? no, come back home and i'll cook something wholesome for you! Yes, that was my childhood. this sudden freedom of eating whatever you want made life surreal for me. street food in mumbai was my favorite part of living in the city - every nook has its flavor, every suburb has its speciality and every vendor his own special touch (yes, pun very much intended!) and most importantly, every time you think that you've tasted it all, up comes something new and exciting!
my very first foray into this street food was perhaps my second week in mumbai, my mother having just gone back after ensuring that life would be ok for me without her. the new freedom, the scant money in my shallow pockets and the bracing sea air got me super advernturous and there i was - ordering pav bhaaji at the street corner where i now lived. while i made faces at how unhygenic the whole process looked, i could not help but feel embarassed at the unabashed groans that my stomach was offering up for all in the near vicinity to hear.
soon enough, heaps of bhaji (medly of mish-mashed and deliciously pan fried veggies) and a couple of pav (dinner rolls, the likes of which only a mumbai baker can make!) made their way into my plate. garnished with coriander and fresh cut onions, this whole thing just was pure heaven. my trials into making this pav-bhaji have been many and finally i have chanced upon a combination that yields - EVERY SINGLE TIME!
i now use this magical combination everytime i want to cook my way into my mumbai-ya man's heart and earn the look of - oh, i love you for making me taste this again!
so here goes.
true and authentic pav-bhaji needs a ton of butter - please, oh please keep your diets at bay. if you want taste, just don't think and bring on that whole stick of butter. yes, the whole big, entire stick of butter.
once it starts swimming in ur pan, add 2 chopped green peppers or as we call them - capsicum! (for a change, i am going to add measures of food - it makes a lot of difference how much of what you add here. but of course, my measurements are going to be very authentically mine - metric and other systems, please excuse my kitchen!)
when these become softer, add grated (yes grated!) ginger (1 cube of ginger ought to do - well, 1 cube about an inch long) and then grate in 5-6 cloves of garlic. there, you already have most of the important bits cooking away.
meanwhile, get some potatoes (5-6 medium sized - now this is the american medium size! indian sizes are 2 sizes smaller when you compare to american veggies - i can feed a family of 4 on half a dozen american oranges!!) and boil them till they are soft as mush. meanwhile, the green peppers in the pan should have now turned translucent and pale...this is the time to chop up one head of cauliflower and 2 big carrots and add them to the pan.
let the veggies cook for about 5 minutes and at this point, already add in the pav bhaji masala. i use everest and now for the second important part after the butter - ADD A TON OF THIS MASALA!! don't please be skimpy on taste.
i don't add peas to my pav-bhaji and never will. i find that they give a sweetish taste that i really don't call authentic. no peas! and definitely no onions - for similar reasons.
once the veggies look almost cooked - you may need to stir frequently and add a bit of water to cook these through, add in the peeled & boiled potatoes.
now comes the part where my muscles take over - use a potato masher and mash all the veggies together till they are a close mish-mash and you can't recognize one from the other! you may now add salt and taste. yes, big important factor still missing - where are the tomatoes, you ask! well, they are too expensive to get the right taste, so i find that adding a whole tin (the small 12 oz one) of hunt's tomato paste does just the right thing for me. let the tomato paste and the masala cook in the mash for a good 15 minutes. if you use a different kind of masala or a different brand of tomatoes, you may want to taste every so often to balance the tanginess from the 'matoes with the spice and zing from the masala.
and there you have it.....bubbling and boiling in front of you will be a big happy pot of pav-bhaji.
the thing that adds the most authentic flavor to this dish, is the crustiness of the pav. get laadi pav (so called, because they are baked in slabs - ready to sink your teeth into) and without adding any butter to these, grill them on a grill pan. let these get nice and brown and crispy. now break into these bits and sink them down deep in that delectable zingy-tang of the bhaji and your mouth will suddenly explode with the thoughts of ---- ahhh! mumbai again!
PS: pictures to come soon. promise! but i do have a video from an actual-rekdi cook who shows you how he makes his pav-bhaji. my version is a dedication to this artiste! the guy hosting the video also gives us an interesting take on the history of this dish.
No comments:
Post a Comment