Easy Pav Bhaji Recipe: Make Your Monsoon Memorable

Who doesn’t like a rainy day? The cold drops pouring down your balcony grill is one of the best feelings you can have throughout the year. Now, what do you do when the climate is this pleasant? It's time to get to the kitchen and play on your favourite playlist. Hence, this Pav Bhaji Recipe. 

What is that one thing that makes Pav Bhaji? What is it? Yes, it's the mix of regular veggies, but what else? It's the exotic taste of butter. That butter melting on top of Bhaji and Pav is what elevates this dish. That’s the real essence of Pav Bhaji. 

What is Pav Bhaji?

I know many of you would be like, ‘Is there any need to explain what pav bhaji is?’ But yes, many people still misinterpret it. To ease it up, Pav Bhaji is an Indian Fast Food that is full of veggies. You get the real taste of all the vegetables you use in it. 

This Maharashtrian fast food is the love for almost every Indian, no matter what region they are from. But what all common ingredients go into it? Some of the common ones are potato, capsicum, peas, onion, tomatoes, garlic, ginger, and MOST IMPORTANT butter. 

However, if you think butter takes away all the charm of your Pav Bhaji, it is not like that. Butter is used only to make it taste like WOW. 

Now, enough introduction about Pav Bhaji, let’s jump into the recipe and see how easy it is to make. 

• Servings- 4 People
• Preparation time- 30 minutes
• Cooking time- 30 minutes
• Difficulty- Medium

Ingredients:

• 8 medium-size potatoes
• 2 green capsicum
• 2 carrots
• 1/2 cauliflower
• 200 gm peas
• 2 medium-sized onions
• 5 medium tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon garlic and ginger paste
• 2 tablespoon Kashmiri red chilli paste (or powder)
• 200 gm butter
• 1 tablespoon Pav Bhaji Masala
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• ½ teaspoon roasted jeera powder (cumin powder)
• 1 spoon jeera (cumin seeds)
• 1 tea spoon dhaniya powder
• 4 Pavs

Procedure for preparation

• The first step will surely take so much time. Why? Because it is all about finely chopping all the vegetables except cauliflower and potatoes. 

• Dice up onion, tomatoes, capsicum, and carrots into small pieces. Yeah, that's a lot of hard work. But if you have some helpful gadget or anything, the work gets a lot easier. That’s why I use this Wonderchef Turbo Chopper. 

• Now, what’s with the potatoes and Cauliflower? Peel the potatoes and cut them into big pieces. 
• With the cauliflower, you first need to take out the tree-like chunks from its trunk. Now, cut them into big chunks, just like potatoes. 
• Now what I do is I take all the vegetables that take more time to cook and put them to boil in a pressure cooker. 
• So, here, we are taking potatoes, cauliflower, carrots and peas to boil them in a pressure cooker. Use just 1-2 whistles because we want to semi-cook them. 

• If you ask for the water quantity, you can pour like 2 glasses of water. 
• Once they are done, mash them using a masher. 
• Now comes the paste of Kashmiri Red chillies. Take about 5-8 chillies, soak them in hot water. 
• Once you see them turning soft. Grind them into a fine paste using a little amount of water.

Now that everything is prepared, it's time to jump to the real deal. That’s about making bhaji. 

Method for Bhaji

• First, take a big Tava, or in this case, I am using a kadhai. 

• Pour about 2 tablespoons of ghee or oil if you want. Allow it to melt properly. 
• Now add about 50 grams of butter. Allow it to melt with the ghee. 

• The first thing to go into the butter is jeera. And once you add it in, it will pop. Be careful as you don’t want to burn it. 

• Now, add finely chopped onion. Mix it well and get it to turn a little transparent. You don’t want to get it all golden but just sweat it. Just mix it in between as you want it to be cooked evenly. 
• As the onion turns all transparent, add your garlic and ginger paste. Mix it well because you want to release its flavours in the oil. 
• Now it’s time to turn your onion as well as garlic and ginger paste into a little golden brown colour. 
• Once you get the right texture, it's time to add the chilli paste that you just prepared. Mix the whole tadka. 

• Right away, add your tomatoes. Don’t cook your chillies without tomatoes because they will release irritating and overwhelming fumes. 
• Now add all the dry spices, including pav bhaji masala (I prefer using Everest one), dhaniya powder, and turmeric. Leave the jeera powder for the end. 

• Add 50 gms butter at this step too. 
• Cook all the masalas until the oil comes to the top. 
• Once that is done, time to add capsicum and all the veggies you just boiled. 

• Mix them all together and get that first boil. 
• If you feel it needs more floating consistency, add more water. But I would prefer to keep it a little dry. 
• Now once you get that red colour into all the vegetables, add salt as per your taste. 
• Also, add Jeera powder and let the flavours sink in.
• Again mix them well and let them cook for about 5-10 minutes. It takes time for all the flavours to spread evenly. But don’t forget to mix in between as well. 

• Now, once you are fine with the consistency, it's time to add some more butter. 
• Use the masher to mash all the veggies together. It’s a little arm workout, but it's totally worth it. Mash it! Mash it! And Mash it!.
• Finally, turn the flame off and spread finely chopped coriander leaves on top. Mix it well, and you are done. Aromatic and finger-licking bhaji ready!

Get your Pavs ready!

Well, when it comes to pav, you can simply toast it in butter and serve it with bhaji. But here, I have come up with a twist called masala pav recipe. No rocket science, just simple ways of toasting it with a twist. 

• On your Tava or pan, add little butter. About a spoon. 
• Once it melts, add a teaspoon of pav bhaji masala. 
• Sprinkle some coriander on top of it. 
• Mix it for 1-2 seconds.
• Cute your pavs in half and place it on the masala we just prepared. 
• Cover the masala from one side and then flip it. 
• Toast it to a crisp from both sides, and you are done having gorgeous crispy and buttery pavs. 

How to serve?

Get your pavs on the plate. On the one side of it, pour the bhaji. Add 1 spoon of butter on top of it and sprinkle some coriander. 

On the side of the plate, add some chopped onion. On top of it goes spicy green chutney and half a lemon. 

That’s the best way to serve your Pav Bhaji. Yummy!!!

Tips for the Pav Bhaji Recipe:

Get some tips before you start your recipe. 

• Boiling veggies like potatoes and cauliflower ease up the step to like 50%. So, it is very important. Otherwise, you will spend about an hour cooking it well. 
• While adding salt, keep in mind that it has potatoes, cauliflower, and peas that taste more salty compared to any other vegetable. I personally would add 1 tablespoon. 
• You use your idea and don't add too much salt at one time because then it would be hard to manage. 
• If you are making it for kids, it is the best way to add all the vegetables your kids have been ignoring. You can add bottle guard, broccoli, beetroot, and many other types of veggies in your bhaji. Because it's all mashed-up, nobody will know. 
• DO NOT add too much butter. Yes, if you add too much butter, then the authenticity of all vegetables will be overlapped. So, be cautious. 
• You can experiment because nothing is original in any sense :)

Conclusion

Now that you have such a detailed Pav Bhaji recipe, it's time to make this treat for yourself. Make your next weekend the best time of this season’s monsoon. 

What are you waiting for? Get to the kitchen, get a bunch of vegetables, and impress your family with this great Indian fast food.