Paav-Bhaji- - With homemade Paav

I had paav-bhaji in US at a friends place who is from Maharashtra. It is the most popular street food of Mumbai. But after eating it at my friends place I realized its a complete meal. I badly wanted to make it at home and went searching for paav. But the US dinner rolls in the stores mostly said eggs in ingredients. So it was not possible for me to buy those. I had to make paav at home. Now this was a little daunting, but I thought of giving it a try after I found a recipe for paav.

So for Paav(bread) you need:

5 cups all purpose flour
2 1/2 cups water
1 packet active dry yeast(7 gm)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tablespoon butter melted

Preparing the paav dough....

Mix sugar and yeast. Heat the water to 80 degrees centigrade. It should be warm but not feel hot when you dip a finger. Add a little water to yeast and sugar first and mix. Let it stand for a minute. Add all the water to the yeast mixture after a minute.

Now make the dough by slowly adding the water to the flour. Try to utilize all the water. The dough will become very sticky but if you continue to knead it, the stickiness would soon reduce. This is a time consuming process as you have to be patient with the dough. You should try to utilize all of the water, the dough should be very soft.

Now incorporate the melted butter in this dough. Add a little and then knead for a minute. keep on adding till you use up all the butter. Once the dough is done, knead it for about 5 minutes.

Keep this dough in a bowl and cover with a plastic wrap. keep the bowl in a warm place. I usually turn on the oven lights and keep the dough inside the oven.

Let the dough proof for and hour.

After 1 hour take out the dough, it would have risen to double its size. Punch it and knead just a little. Now grease and flour a baking tray. Make about 15 pieces of the dough and make rounds in a circular fashion and keep it in the baking tray. Arrange the rounds as shown in the picture, let them touch each other a little. Cover the tray with a plastic wrap loosely and let the dough rise for another 30 minutes.



After 30 minutes the dough would have risen as
shown in the picture. Take some milk and brush the top of the rounds with it.










Preheat oven to 400 F. bake the paav for 25 mins at 400-375 degrees F. Check after 25 mins, if the top is golden brown and the paav seems baked well, take it out and cool on a rack. Brush the top with some butter so that it does not dry out. Serve warm with Bhaji.







Bhaji Recipe:

For the Bhaji, you can use any number of vegetables that you like, potatoes, cauliflower, beans, peas, carrots, turnips, corn. Whatever you have in the refrigerator just get it.

So here is what you need:

4 cups of chopped vegetables
1 big red onion chopped fine
5 medium sized tomatoes chopped
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 heaped tablespoon ginger-garlic paste
1/2 cup chopped capsicum
1 teaspoon red chilli powder
2 teaspoons paav bhaji powder(MTR, Everest, MDH brands available in Indian stores)
3 Tbspns of butter
salt to taste

Pressure cook the vegetables with 1/2 cup of water for about 10 mins.
Heat 2 Tbspns of butter in a deep pan.
Add cumin seeds and let them splutter.
Add ginger-garlic paste, onions and capsicum and let it cook till the onions are translucent.
Add the chopped tomatoes and cook till the tomatoes are very tender.
Add the paav bhaji masala and red chilli powder and cook for another 2 mins.
Now mash all the boiled vegetables and add to the gravy. Add salt and mix well. Add about 1 cup of water and 1 Tbspn of butter and let it simmer. The gravy will become of saucy consistency.

Serve hot with paav garnished with chopped onion tomatoes and a dash of lemon juice.

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