Pav Bhaji

A Mumbai street food staple

• CuisineIndian
• CategoryVegetarian
• CourseMains

Ingredients

• 500 gmsOnion, chopped
• 300 gmsCapsicum, chopped
• 1 kgTomatoes, chopped
• 1 kgPotatoes, boiled and peeled
• 200 gmsPeas
• 1 tbspChilli powder
• 4 tbspPav bhaji masala
• 2 tspCumin seeds
•  Oil
•  Salt
• 6Bread rolls

Preparation

1. Heat oil
2. Add cumin seeds and let it crackle
3. Add chopped onions and capsicum and fry till soft
4. Add chopped tomatoes, peas and chilli powder and cook till tomatoes are cooked
5. Crumble cooked potato by hand and add to pan
6. Add pav bhaji masala and mix
7. Split bread rolls, spread and fry on a frypan with a bit of oil

When the sun has set, however late in the night it is, you could always depend on Marshal at his pav bhaji stand, just outside Vile Parle station. It was the typical pushcart with a metre wide, round pan where Marshal worked his magic. The flat pan called a 'tava' is at the heart of every pav bhaji stall. The ingredients are thrown on the tava one by one. The tomatoes are chopped on the edge of the pan. The pav bhaji is stirred with a flat, square spoon. The cooked vegetables are crushed by flattening them with the spoon. Once made, you can ask him to make it extra hot (which a couple of us always would). Marshal would take this as a criticism of his pav bhaji and would be reckless with the chilli powder. Any remaining bhaji is pushed to the side, where it stays warm but does not burn. The same pan has pieces of butter thrown on it. Once melted and sizzling, the pav is pan-fried on it. We would then dig in, our eyes and noses streaming, if we had ordered the extra hot version. Which a couple of us always did. You can also order the deluxe version, where he would put a chunk of butter on top. It slowly melted into the hot pav bhaji and you mixed it up as you ate it.

But what about when you would rather try making it at home? A few of us tried to reverse engineer the whole thing. Several pairs of eyes watched Marshal's every move. Whispered steps, being committed to memory, repeated and revised on the way back home. Then we tried the same at home. It wasn't exactly the same and over the years it has drifted from the original but Marshal's recipe lives on even now in a few kitchens.

I don't know if Marshal still hawks his wares but now, many a restaurant serves Pav Bhaji. The whole thing has gone upmarket. But it is not the same. Marshal's flat spoon is replaced by potato mashers, reducing everything on the pan to a red paste. Or you could go to the other extreme and order Khada Pav Bhaji where the vegetables are left chunky. Butter is easy to come by and the pav bhaji comes with giant puddles of melting butter. The Pav has so much butter dripping off it that it leaves your fingers greasy. You can get it covered in grated cheese. But you just can't order an extra hot version.

Over the decades, Pav Bhaji has remained the most popular street food in Mumbai, along with Vada Pav. Legend is that, in the 1850s, an inept cook trying to sell food to hundreds of hungry workers just threw pre-cooked vegetables on a pan and sold it. It soon became popular and Pav Bhaji stalls sprouted up everywhere. The vegetables are pre-cooked and in some cases, pre-chopped. The traditional flat bread is dispensed with, using ready made bread rolls. The mix of spices that gives Pav Bhaji its distinctive taste has become the Pav Bhaji Masala, freely available in foil packs at any store.