Vada Pav

Dear Friends,

This is one of the most favourite food in my house. It is most famous street food of Mumbai or I would say Maharashtra, a state in India, which is loved by young and old. It is available in every street corner and no matter what time of the day, you will see people eating this. It is so delicious. I don’t find good tasting vada pav here in Canada. I have been making these for many many years and fed so many friends and family. Recently, I made these when I invited family over and everyone loved the delicious taste. So I decided to share my secret recipe with all of you.

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Cooking Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:
5-6 big potatoes
5-6 cloves garlic
1/2 inch ginger
5-6 green chilies
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 cup chopped coriander leaves
1 tsp garam masala powder
Salt to taste
Oil for frying

For Tempering:
1 tsp each of cumin seeds, mustard seeds, urad dal, crushed coriander seeds
1/4 tsp of asafoetida
5-6 curry leaves
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
2 tbsp oil

Batter:
2 cups besan/gram flour
1/2 tsp each turmeric powder and red chili powder
1/2 tsp crushed coriander seeds
Pinch of baking soda/soda bi carb
Salt to taste

Procedure

1. Pressure cook potato or boil until it is soft from inside. In a big bowl, break potatoes with masher, do not completely mash.

2. Make chili, ginger and garlic paste.

3. In a small bowl, heat 2 tbsp of oil. Add cumin seeds, mustard seeds and then urad dal. Let mustard seed splutter, then add crushed coriander seeds, curry leaves and asafoetida. In few seconds, add ginger chili garlic paste and 1/2 tsp turmeric powder. Stir the mixture and saute for a minute.

4.  Add above mixture to mashed potato. Also add lemon juice, chopped coriander leaves, garam masala and salt. Taste the mixture and adjust spices accordingly.

5. Make golf ball size balls from potato mixture.

6 Mix all the batter ingredients in a bowl, add water and make batter. Batter consistency should be little thick.

7. Heat oil in frying pan. Drop 5-7 potato vada in batter, cover with batter from all the sides and slowly drop one vada at a time in frying pan. Fry vada until it is golden brown from all the side.

8. Fry all vadas just before you are ready to serve.

9. Serve hot vada with pav (bread), dry garlic chutney and coriander chutney. Put a cut in middle of the bread (keep one side joint), spread garlic chutney and coriander chutney and then put vada in the middle. In my house we also have sambhar with vada pav. You can also toast bread with butter before spreading chutney. Garlic and crushed coriander adds so much flavour to vada.

Non Fried Vada

You can also make healthy version using paniyaram (appe) pan without loosing the taste. Keep the batter slightly thick so it sticks to vada. Prepare slightly small vada to fit in appe pan. Heat appe pan. Drop 1/2 tsp oil in each groove, then add vada coated in thick besan batter. Cook vada on medium heat. When vadas are slightly done at the bottom, move it and add 1/2 tsp oil again. Cook from all sides until it’s done.

I am sure, once you try this recipe you won’t miss the old way.

Also let me know if you have any questions regarding the dish.

Thank you for visiting my blog. Until next time!

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