Pav Bhaaji - Indian Street food!

Pav bhaaji is something you find in food carts in almost any city in India. Bhaaji means vegetable and Pav means bread. It's a simple combination of bread toasted lightly with a lot of butter, and a spicy tomato based gravy with tons of vegetables. Served with some raw onion and lemon wedges and a dollop of butter, you just can't get enough of this. I can almost guarantee you will end up overeating just like we did today!

Prep Time: 1 hour
Serves: 4, or 3 very hungry people :)
Ingredients: 

1 medium onion
1 tablespoon ginger garlic paste
1 14 oz can of diced tomatoes ( I use canned tomato for this recipe because it's usually more reliable than fresh tomato. You need juicy ripe tomatoes for this recipe which can be hard to find. )
2 medium green peppers
1-2 large potatoes
1.5 cups cauliflower
1 cup peas
1/2 cup carrots
1.2 cup beans
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1.5 tablespoons Pav Bhaji masala
1 teaspoon chilli powder
Salt
1 load of dinner rolls or "Pav"
Tons of butter! - Okay, 1 stick or 1/2 cup of butter for the vegetables and a little bit for the dinner rolls. If you want to eat clean and try a healthy version, you can totally go easy on the butter and use just enough to fry your onions.
Lime, onion and cilantro for the garnish

Method:

1. Heat about 1/4 cup of butter and add the cumin seeds until they splutter.

2. Add the onions and fry until golden brown.

3. Add the ginger garlic paste and fry until you lose that raw smell.

4. Add green peppers and saute for a few minutes before adding the diced tomatoes, pav bhaji masala, chilli powder and salt. Fry this mixture until you see the oil separate from the masala.

5. Add the potato, cauliflower, peas, carrots and beans with about 2 cups of water and let this boil for about 15-20 minutes or until well cooked. Stir and mash the vegetables with your ladle occasionally. The bhaaji is ready when all the vegetables are nicely smashed but there's still a little chunkyness left in the mixture. Add another 1/4 cup of butter (if you decide to live on the edge :)) in the end and mix well.

6. To toast the dinner rolls or pav, add some butter in a frying pan. Coat the dinner rolls in this butter and lightly toast them on the pan.

Garnish with lime, cilanto and raw onions. Serve with a dollop of butter and lightly buttered toasted dinner rolls.

Sabudana Khichdi!

My aunt lives in Pune which a city in Maharashtra, India. She used to make this for us every time we visited her or when she visited us. It's a Maharashtrian dish that is usually made during fasts as it is quite filling and the carbs can keep you going for a long while after you're done eating. I usually make this when I know we are going to get some physical activity and it's become our go-to breakfast on days that my husband and I go for a hike.

The recipe requires a little bit of prep work but once you have that out of the way you can get this ready in about 10-15 minutes. If you do the prep work the night before you want to eat this, you can have it ready in under 15 minutes!

It is a little hard to get the right texture with this khichdi. Water can totally ruin it and you'll end up with a flop that my dad likes to call "soggy dana". Follow my recipe and you should have absolutely no problem getting this right.

Here's a terrible pic of the final product before we move on to the actual recipe! I need to take better pics...Oh well. At least you know I haven't used photoshop to make it look better than it really is :)

Ingredients:

1 cup unsoaked sabudana pearls (tapioca or sago pearls)

1/2 to 3/4 cup of roasted peanuts (crushed or powdered)

6-8 green chillies

2-3 small potatoes or 1 large potato

2 teaspoons jeera

Handful of chopped cilantro

Salt

Prep work!

1. Soak the sabudana overnight.  Add just enough water to cover the top and soak it overnight or at least 4-5 hours. If the sabudana is particularly powdery, I sometimes rinse it a couple of times before I soak.

2. Chop or powder the peanuts. I like to use a mix of powdered and chopped up peanuts so you get a few peanut pieces in every bite!

3. Chop and boil the potatoes in a microwave so you don't have to spend time frying them in step 2.

Method:

1. Mix the crushed peanuts and sabudana (post soaking).

2. Heat oil and fry the jeera until it splutters. Add the boiled potato and green chillies. Fry until the potatoes are brown. If you boiled these in the microwave, then make sure the water has evaporated.

3. Add the sabudana and peanuts mixture with salt and just let it cook while stirring occasionally so it doesn't burn. The sabudana will turn from opaque white to this slightly translucent shade. That's when you know it's done. It usually takes about 5-7 minutes for this step. 

4. Add chopped cilantro and dig in!

We usually serve it with some lemon wedges and cold yogurt. The yogurt helps mellow out the spice of the green chillies and the whole hot and cold combination is just tooo yummy to handle!