Homemade Laadi Pav and Pav Bhaji: Mumbai Special

I am celebrating 2010 world bread day with homemade Laadi pav and Pav bhaji. I got introduced to Pav and pav bhaji after my marriage 2005 when I visited Mumbai with my Hubby. This is a wonderful one pot meal you love to have it over and over. Pav and Pav bhaji indirectly points to Mumbai. It is one of the famous street foods of India’s business capital Mumbai. I have seen lot of people from small street vendors to restaurants in posh malls cater this dish. People usually stand in line and patiently wait to order food, which is one of the good qualities I have seen in Mumbai. Where as in Delhi everybody is running like they have reach first it like a running competition. At the Delhi airport my hubby was ordering masala dosa, he gave the credit card to girl who takes the order. Then she told him they won’t take credit card and needed cash. He turns his head and asks me for the cash. In the meantime a gentle man nudges my hubby and started ordering; however the girl didn’t take his order. And also after they announced that our flights starts boarding everybody is running to kiosk like the flight is going to take off if they have not boarded the plane first. 

If you are in Mumbai you don’t need to make pav bhaji and pav at home as it readily available fresh at any time. But here in US there is no such option, if you want you have to prepare at home. My hubby is an expert in making Pav Bhaji. I like his version, may be because he controls the spices. In Mumbai I find it spicy. We are not those spicy persons. He told me he will be making his signature dish.

I decide to make Pav, earlier when we made Pav bhaji; we ate it with bread or hamburger buns. One time I made no-knead buns, trust me they are hardest buns I have seen in my life time. If you get a hit with them sure you are going to hospital. So I dropped the idea of making pav for some time. Failures are steps for success so I decided give one more try. Furthermore I wanted to recreate the pav I tasted in Mumbai. They are soft, white buns if you push with hand it bounce back.

Pav in Marathi means bread, and it is borrowed from Portuguese pão meaning Bread. Laadi pav means it looks like slabs of buns resembling the slabs of the floor after it gets baked. This dish has a history that it was created by a vendor for textile mill workers. As their lunch break time is limited, they need something to eat within a few minutes and it should be filling also. So he created pav in the place of rice and curry is substituted with pav bhaji. Read more about from here. Anyway they are most delicious fast food I can think about and it requires no fries on the side as burgers do. My nieces are ultimate fans of Pav bhaji; they are from Mumbai so their taste buds are quite adjusted that way. Whenever we go out, they orders only Pav bhaji and ice creams. Ice creams in India have more flavors than here. I had one custard apple ice cream in my sister –in-law’s house, it was really good.

I don’t know how authentic pav is made so decided to use white bread dinner roll from my favorite bread baking book. The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread by Peter Reinhart. I made a few changes in the recipe by not adding egg and reduced the amount of sugar and butter and slightly increasing the amount of yeast. Other than that I followed the recipe. Finally I was able to make pillowy white soft pav from my own kitchen. Even after 4 days at room temperature pav was able to retain its softness and taste.

For pav bhaji, we used cauliflower, capsicum, onion, potato, peas, tomato paste , chili powder, kasturi methi( dried fenugreek leaves) and pav bhaji masala. Usually pav bhaji is made in flat big skillet/tawa. We used our non-stick skillet to make Bhaji. Everything was done by my hubby expect cutting, making ginger garlic paste and finally cleaning the vessels and kitchen. Pav bhaji is slightly runny curry of mushy vegetables with loads of butter in it. We reduced the amount of butter as much as possible. Still some butter is there without butter how can you say it is pav bhaji. 

Buttered pav is served with raw onions and lemon wedges along with bowl of pav bhaji. Try this delicious combo, if we can’t be in Mumbai at least pav bhaji can be in our kitchen and we can taste this fast food in our dining table watching movies, serials or sports. 

Print recipe from here

What you need

For Pav

 Bread flour: 3 ½ cup (I used King Arthur unbleached Flour)
Salt: ¾ teaspoon
Sugar: 2 ½ tablespoon
Yeast: 2 teaspoon (I used Rapid rise yeast)
Milk: 1 ½ cup (I used whole milk)
Butter: 2 tablespoon+ 1 tablespoon for brushing on the top






For Pav Bhaji

Cauliflower: 2 cup (Chopped into florets)
Potato: 1 ¼ cup (Chopped into cubes)
Onion: 1 no
Peas: ½ cup (I used frozen peas)
Tomato: 2 no
Tomato paste: 2 tablespoon (I used Hunts paste)
Pav bhaji masala: 1 tablespoon (I used Everest pav bhaji masala)
Paprika: 1 teaspoon
Chili powder: ¼ teaspoon
Salt: 1 ¼ teaspoon or to taste
Butter: 2 tablespoon
Olive oil: 1 tablespoon
Ginger garlic paste: 1 tablespoon (I used freshly grated paste)
Asafetodia: ¼ teaspoon
Turmeric: ¼ teaspoon
Kasthuri methi/Dried fenugreek leaves: ½ tablespoon
Chopped coriander leaves: 1 tablespoon
Lemon: 1 no (½ for serving and ½ for extracting juice)

How I made

Pav

In a small bowl stir in butter, sugar and 1 ½ cup warm milk so that everything gets dissolved and combined well. Set aside for 5 minutes. 

In a large bowl or bowl of electric mixer add 3 cup flour, yeast, salt and butter-sugar-milk mixture and mix with a large metal spoon or (on low speed of electric mixer with the paddle attachment) until all the flour is absorbed and forms a ball.

Transfer the dough to the floured counter and begin kneading (or mix on medium speed with dough hook) adding more flour to create soft supple dough which not sticky. Continue to kneading for 6-8 minutes (In the electric mixer, dough should clear the sides of the bowl but stick slightly to the bottom). The dough should pass windowpane test or register 80F.

Transfer the dough to well oiled bowl let it ferment in room temperature until it doubles in size. It took about 2 hours and 5 minutes.

Remove the doubled dough from the bowl and divide it into 15 pieces for pav/buns/dinner rolls. Shape the pieces into round (I didn’t succeed in that part, they look slightly shapeless) and transfer to lightly oil baking sheet. Mist them with oil and cover with a towel or plastic wrap. Allow to rest for 1 hour or until they doubles in size.

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Mist the pav/buns with water and bake them for about 16 minutes or until the top becomes golden brown.

Remove from the oven and brush immediately with butter while warm. After brushing with butter, remove them from baking sheet and transfer to wire rack and let it cool for 15 minutes before serving.

Enjoy with warm pav bhaji. 

Preparation time: 3 hours 25 minutes
Yield: 15 no
Verdict: Yummy
Will you make it again: I will

Bhaji

Pressure cook cleaned cauliflower florets, chopped potato, peas with 1 cup of water for 3 whistles. It takes about 25 minutes. Set aside cooked vegetables. 

Heat medium skillet with oil and when it heated add chopped onion and fry until it becomes translucent or changes to light brown color it takes about 6 minutes. To this add chopped capsicum and fry for 2 minutes and add ginger-garlic paste. Fry for 2 minutes then add tomatoes along 4 tablespoon of water and cook until they become soft. 

To the above mixture add turmeric powder, paprika, red chili powder, salt , tomato paste and pav-bhaji masala and fry until the spices get infused and roasted incorporated well. It takes about 3 minutes.

To onion- capsicum-tomato spice mixture add cooked vegetables and water mash them with potato masher also stir in between to prevent them from sticking the pan. Then add 1 tablespoon of butter and mix everything. To this add ¾ tablespoon of chopped coriander leaves and lemon juice cook until everything gets mushy and no ingredients are recognizable, to this add dried fenugreek leaves/kasturi methi and mix well.

Note: Add water if necessary to prevent the vegetables from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

Garnish bhaji with rest of chopped coriander leaves and served with chopped onion and a lemon wedges and 1 teaspoon of butter (I skipped that butter part).

Serving Pav


Slit the pav/bun horizontally, spread with some butter on both side and toast in them in heated pan.

If you wish you can make pav more spicy by spreading the sides with this spice mixture(1 tablespoon butter+ 1 tablespoon chopped coriander leaves+ 1/8 teaspoon of chili powder+ 1 teaspoon of pav bhaji masala) and toast them. (I skipped this part too)

Preparation time: Pav bhaji: 40 minutes
Yield: 8 serving
Verdict: Tasty
Will you make it again: Yes I will

I am sending this delicious Home made Laadi Pav and Pav bhaji to  5th edition of  World Bread day 2010 hosted by Zorra

 It also going to Susan's  Yeastspotting

Swathi