Pav Bhaji is known to be a dish created in Mumbai as a lunch for workers in mills.  Pav stands for bread with which bhaji is served which can mean what people call as curry in western parts of the world. Bhaji in this case is a mash of potatoes and other vegetables (typically onions, tomatoes, peas and green bell peppers/capsicum). It is spiced with aromatic and sweet smelling spices and laced with butter.

A case for winter vegetables

Even in Wisconsin we do get some seasonal produce in winters that’s superb in quality in the winters. Think root vegetables and squashes. So with such bounty of root vegetables on offer we do not limit ourselves to potatoes. They are of-course present, but we also get sweet potatoes, Japanese sweet potatoes/yams/ratala, celeriac root, carrots, turnips, squashes and cauliflowers. Based on what we obtain at the market we craft a winter vegetable pav bhaji.

The pav bhaji foundation vegetables

Alongwith the winter vegetables we always build the bhaji with a base of onions, tomatoes, bell peppers of different kind, green peas and ginger, garlic. As a comment, you do need a lot of onions and the acidity of tomatoes is quite important to the balance of the dish but use fresh tomatoes whenever possible. There is a surprise sweet heat that comes from cooked bell pepper and sautéed bell peppers which are left a bit crunchy and both add a bit of a mystery taste to pav bhajis which is quintessential. The ginger garlic paste is used as seasoning here as well just like lime juice or cinegars.

A little bit of everything

To keep the winter vegetables in balance so that not any one vegetable overpowers other we use about half cup of each. If you have less variety of winter vegetables, simply substitute that with half cup of the neutral potato.

We chop the winter vegetables and steam them.

For the base vegetables, we chop the onions and the bell peppers. We puree and then strain the tomatoes (We don’t recommend using tomato puree from a can but if you do use half of it and dilute to the required quantity with water). We cook the peas, blanch them then puree them. And we puree the ginger and garlic together using some water to get about a cup of puree.

Importance of sweating onions

As the winter vegetables steam, start with some vegetable oil and sweat the onions. Its very important to not brown the onions but just sweat them so they go light pink and kind of melt. Stir them every now and then and reduce heat or add a few spoons of water as needed. We then add half the chopped bell peppers and do the same.

We follow it with half the ginger garlic puree and cook it all down gently.

The pav bhaji spice

The pav bhaji smell is essentially a product of the trinity of three sweet aromatic spice of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. They are rounded off with cumin and coriander for earthiness and the anise for aroma and mace for the camphor like pickup. Some sweeter and colorful kashmiri chili powder completes our blend. If this doesn’t remind you of pav bhaji after using it, you just need more cinnamon in there most likely.

We add the ground pav bhaji masala to our sweating onions and peppers and cook it gently. Its very important to keep heat low and not burn this spice mix. We have to toast it, or cook it without burning it, so add a few spoons of water to control the heat if needed and de-glaze the pan.

We follow this up with the tomato puree and the peas puree, add some water and cover the pan and cook on low.

Mashing the winter vegetables

Typically the vegetables are steamed and mashed with the potato masher. You can do that as well. We have found that mixing the vegetables in a kitchen-aid while hot on low and then gradually adding water also does a great job.

The importance of texture

The pavbhaji texture is not really like mashed potatoes but usually is a little bit chunky yet defined by the sticky starchiness of the potatoes and root vegetables. Generally each and every vegetable is cooked and mashed by the masher including onions, tomatoes and the peas. We have found that pureeing everything smoothly but the onions and bell peppers can also give you the required texture. This actually save some time as well there is no danger of ending up with a chunky pav bhaji from any of your vegetables not breaking down as required.

The layers from ginger garlic paste

As the bhaji cooks, dilute the ginger garlic paste with half cups water and every now and then add a spoon to the cooking bhaji. This always leaves some ginger garlic flavors with the pav bhaji which vary from cooked to raw or fresh. This helps keep the pav bhaji freshened up with complex layers of flavors as cooking flattens the flavors. Do this seasoning with little bit of ginger garlic paste right till the very end and also next day while reheating if there are left overs. If serving guests they always go for second or third helpings and i keep the diluted ginger garlic paste next to the casserole to add to it every 10 or 15 mins to keep refreshing the seasoning.

Mixing and integrating

Once we add the mashed winter vegetables we season it with salt and add some water and cover to cook down thoroughly allowing the starches to cook and integrate with the onion tomato spice mixture.

Finishing aromatics

If you are preparing pav bhaji ahead of time, you should cook it till this step and finish it with these aromatics at time of serving. To finish the pav bhaji, we use some bitter notes of toasted kasuri methi and fennel, both are intensely aromatic too. It is important to toast them both lightly to coax the nutty flavors and aromas out.

We grind them fine in a mortar and pestle. Do yourself a favor and smell them right after this step!

Then we melt some butter and just after it foams add the remaining peppers to saute them. Then we add our ground kasuri methi and fennel seeds and they transform as the butter extracts their flavors and releases the aromas.

We mix this in the bhaji and then turn the heat to low and do not cook it much further.

If needed adjust the seasoning and also melt in some cold butter very very gently to make it a velvety rich taste.

Consistency

Throughout the cooking you need to add water to adjust consistency. Pav bhaji when ladled into a plate should spread. It should not settle like a lump. Ut slowly spread and not run away. This is the consistency you should try to keep. If the bhaji cools down as you eat, it will dry out and you should add a few spoons of hot water. Same should be done when reheating if you refrigerate it for next day.

About the bread

The bread is ladi pav which is available in india. I urge to not chose the wonder-bread kind of hamburger buns if in US. They are too sweet and light and moist with a micro crumb. For pav bhaji you need something which is drier, has a slightly larger crumb and are not very sweet. A dinner roll works as well as hoagie or sub buns work. You can cut them in half or bias after slicing them open. They get toasted on medium heat butter on both sides on a griddle. You can add any leftover pav bhaji masala or a drizzle of red chili powder and turmeric to the griddle butter. If the pav is not available, let me tell you a secret. I love eating this with a  chapati even though it is not traditional and it wont be pav-bhaji as we are breaking the duo. You can also pair some fresh naan or by reheating frozen naan (check our tips for reheating frozen naan).

Serving

Pav bhaji should be served hot. As mentioned we season as required with fresh gi ger garlic paste at the last minute if bhaji has gone flat. We also season with lime juice as well provide a lime on the side. The finely chopped cilantro and onions are added as a crunchy topping and people who are used to eating pav bhaji like it a lot. For our german friends for whom raw onions was a deterrent we actually used chopped radish in small quantity and it actually worked quite well although different from traditional pav bhaji. But then again tradition has never stopped us and with pav bhaji, tradition itself means maybe only a few decades ago.

It also needs to be garnished with butter. Restaurant style uses it a lot, specifically a locally made salted butter by Amul. If you season the pav bhaji with salt then plain butter will work. We actually use a vegetable peeler on a slab of cold butter and add shavings.

If there was a bottomless dish this is one. People add bhaji to finish their pav’s and then ask for more pav’s to finish the bhaji. Hope you get to try the seasonal bounty folded i to your favorite pav bhaji.

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