Batata vada and Vada Pav/ Fried Besan Covered Mashed Potato Fritters Sandwiched Between Dinner Rolls

If you been to Mumbai, the financial capital of India, then you would have encountered this delicious fast food. In Mumbai, like New York life is on fast track, everything is based on local trains and small stalls selling fast food. It is like the vein of the city. If the trains stopped then life would come to a standstill. My only connection with Mumbai is that it is my hubby’s home. My in-laws and sisters-in-law families stay there. Before marriage, I had visited Mumbai for the first time as my sister was working there. She took me to sightseeing especially to Juhu beach around 2 P.M in mid afternoon in the scorching sun. Only the guys who sell the tender coconut water were there at that time. As we have to finish everything in two days there was no other choice except to visit the beach around noon, as my sister was moving to Delhi for her new job. That time we also visited, Siddhi Vinayaka temple, Mahalakshmi temple and Mahim church.

After marriage, I thought I was going to see more of Mumbai, and then my hubby dear says that I am not trained to get into the crowded local trains. Due to my lack of training I can see only few places where local transport vehicle, the auto rickshaw can take us. He is right, in Mumbai, in order to travel you need local trains as these are the only thing that will get you to destination at somewhat fast space. 

However he introduced me to famous fast foods of Mumbai, vada pav, Batata vada, Pav Bhaji etc. You can see that at every corner of a major road is a food stall with people busily consuming hot Batata vada or vada pav while talking with each other or talking on a mobile phone. You don’t need to ask anybody where the best Batata vada is served, find it out yourself by the long queue of people, waiting for the food. For a person from southern part of India, Batata vada seems to be like Bonda which my mom used to make. First time I wondered why they are eating bonda sandwiched between pav/dinner rolls. Once I got hang of it I started loving them. 

Last week I wanted to make Parker house rolls, for that recipe I needed some mashed potato. Earlier in the week hubby dear asked me can you make some Batata vada for me. He told me that there is song on Batata vada in a Hindi movie. While looking at the song clip on You Tube I found out that for the delicious dish, the song was picturised in the most boring way.

Anyway I decide to make this dish as I had delicious parker house rolls in my hand. I asked my mother-in-law for the recipe during our weekend phone conversation. She gave me an idea, and also from reading various recipes I got my final recipes. Some of the recipes are adding onions along with mashed potato, but in Mumbai what I tasted did not contain any onions. I followed that. I made a filling with mashed potato, ginger garlic green chili paste, salt, turmeric, curry leaves, asafetodia, cumin seeds, mustard seeds and coriander leaves. Covering was made with chickpea flour/besan, chili powder, asafetodia, salt and turmeric. The fried goodies are served warm with green chutney and tomato ketchup sandwiched in a pillowy Parker house rolls. My hubby gave me thumbs up and told me that it was similar to what he used to have. He was happy to consume it as his evening snack as well as breakfast. If a Mumbaikar (that is what they call a person from Mumbai) can say this tastes great, then why wait, give it a try soon. Here goes the recipe.

One year  ago: Malai Kofta with Paneer

Print recipe from here

What you need

For filling

Mashed boiled potato: 3 cups
Cumin seeds: ½ teaspoon
Mustard seeds: ½ teaspoon
Lemon juice: 1 teaspoon (Increase if you need more tanginess)
Ginger: 1 inch piece
Garlic: 2 cloves
Green chili: 1 no
Curry leaves: 1 sprig
Turmeric: ¼ teaspoon
Salt: 11/4 teaspoon or to taste
Olive oil: 1 tablespoon
Coriander leaves: 2 tablespoon( chopped finely)
Water: 4 cups

For covering

Besan/ chick pea flour: ½ cup
Water: ½ cup
Chili powder: ½ teaspoon
Turmeric: ¼ teaspoon
Baking soda: 1/8 teaspoon
Salt: ½ teaspoon or to taste
Oil: 4 cups for frying






How I made

Pressure cook the potato with 4 cups of water for 5 whistles and peel the skin and mash and set aside. 

Grind green chili, ginger and garlic into fine paste and set aside.

Heat a small pan with a tablespoon of oil and add cumin seeds, mustard seeds, curry leaves, asafetodia and turmeric powder. Once mustard seeds start spluttering remove from the fire and set aside.

In a medium bowl add mashed potato, salt, green chili-ginger-garlic paste and cumin-mustard-curry leaves-asafetodia-turmeric mixture, lemon juice and chopped coriander leaves and mix everything. 

Knead well to form potato mixture dough and make small lemon sized balls from the potato dough and set aside. 

In another pan add besan, chili powder, turmeric, asafetodia, baking soda and water to form a slightly thick batter (If you dip a spoon, back side of the spoon should coat with batter. If batter is thin, potato balls don’t get uniform covering and burn easily. If batter is thick, inside won’t fry properly) and set aside.

Heat oil in a thick bottomed pan and when it reaches to 360 F dip potato balls in the besan batter and slowly add to hot oil. Try to add oil with spoon over the potato balls until a net all over and gradually flip and cook both sides. It takes about 2 minutes per sides.

Remove them from oil with slotted spoon and drain the extra oil using a kitchen towel.

Enjoy with green chutney and ketchup or date and tamarind chutney.

For vada pav

What you need

Pav /dinner rolls: 12no ( I used home made Parker House Rolls)
Butter: 1 tablespoon
Green chutney: ½ cup (Recipe here)
Tomato ketchup: as much you wish

How I made

Take a single roll and break in the center lather with butter and slightly warm both side.

Brush the inside with green chutney first and then Ketchup and place a Batata vada in between and enjoy with warm tea or coffee.

Preparation time: 55 minutes
Yield: 12 no
Verdict: Yummy
Will you make it again; Yes I will

This  Batata vada is going to  Deep fried snacks event hosted by Radhika