Pav Bhaji (पाव भाजी) is a spicy curry of mixed vegetables (bhaji) cooked in a special blend of spices and served with soft buttered pav (white rolls slightly toasted with butter). It is any Indian food lover’s dream to have hot bhaji with a piece of buttery shallow fried bun and some chopped onions. I hope that with this Mumbai style Pav bhaji recipe of mine, I have done justice to the authentic taste of pav bhaji.
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What is Pav Bhaji?
Pav bhaji is an extremely popular street food from west of India and now widely known across India and world. It consists of spicy gravy based curry made by mashing all sorts of vegetables and cooked with spices, served along side soft bun breads soaked in butter.
If you eat this bhaji on a road side eatery, likely there is more tomatoes and potatoes and less vegetables (as vegetables tend to be costly). Decent restaurants do add vegetables in the bhaji. I tend to use decent portions of vegetables (Capsicum, cauliflower, green peas) in bhaji.
Normally Pav is served soaked in butter, though I will suggest add butter as you find good for your own needs.
Pav bhaji masala
This Pav bhaji recipe talks about using pav bhaji masala, which you should be able to get from any Indian grocery store.
In case you do not have pav bhaji masala, you can make pav bhaji masala at home by dry roasting the following and grinding to powder form.
- 1 Black Cardamom
- 1/2 teaspoon dry mango powder
- 1 Teaspoon peppercorn
- 2 Table spoon coriander seeds
- 1 Teaspoon cumin seeds
- 1 Teaspoon fennel seeds
- 3 cloves
- 2 Dried red chillies
- 1 inch cinnamon
The boiled and mashed veggies give it a smooth yet chunky texture, while all the spices gives it a irresistible, mouthwatering aroma and taste. It is magical to see how spices can turn even bland boiled vegetables to something absolutely scrumptious.
Steps to make best pav bhaji at home
The process of making this bhaji is divided into two steps:
Making bhaji (bhaji is a term for curry in western part of India)
- Take a Kadai/Pan or a Tava(skillet) in which you are planning to make bhaji. Add 1.5 tablespoon of oil to it. Once heated, add cumin seeds to it. Add all of chopped capsicum, grated cauliflower and 1/2 cup onions and saute till they are tender.
- Add chopped tomatoes, chopped chillies, boiled and mashed potatoes and green peas to it. Now mash this with potato masher and saute till they are all soft and water is evaporated.
- Add 1/2 tablespoon pav bhaji masala, 1/2 teaspoon salt, red chilli powder, turmeric powder and half of garam masala and kasuri methi to it.
- Mix well and saute for few more minutes and switch off the flame.
- Take this mixture out and on the same pan add 2 tablespoon of butter. Now add rest of the chopped onions and saute till they are translucent.
- Add Ginger Garlic paste and saute till the raw smell evades. Add rest of the bhaji masala.
- Now add tomato puree concentrate. Iused this just to get nice colour for bhaji, you can totally skip it if you don’t like to add. Mix well and saute for 2 minutes.
- Now add the bhaji mixture (prepared earlier), rest of salt and garam masala and mix it well. Add 1/4 cup water and saute this mixture for few minutes while mashing it in between.
- Add rest of kasoori methi with 2 tablespoon of butter and saute again till it reaches your desired consistency.
- Lastly lemon juice, mix well and switch off the flame. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves.
Readying the pav
In this step the bun breads (go for soft bun breads for better taste), are slightly tossed on a pan with butter. You can use normal burger buns or even bread in place of pav.
Why you should eat this pav bhaji
- Bhaji is fully vegetarian, and is a great way to intake veggies, and I find paav bhaji allows me to feed vegetables to kids in a tasty way.
- If you go with gluten-free pavs, whole pav bhaji is a good meal for gluten-free
- This, tastes incredibly tasty.
- Bhaji is a good way to use your left over veggies left. Just mash up all the vegetables.
Mostly when I am left with few vegetables in fridge, I end up in making this delicious pav bhaji and all the vegetables are put to use 🙂
Jain Pav Bhaji
If you in Mumbai or Gujrat, you will also find something called Jain Pav bhaji. Jains are people who practice jainism, and have specific dietary requirements. To make jain pav bhaji, do not use potato and onion. Instead of ginger garlic paste use ginger paste (some jains do not eat ginger too, so check before you add it), add more peas instead of potato.
Vegan Pav Bhaji
For the vegans out here, the only thing which you need to change in this recipe is swap normal butter with a plant based butter. You may also try to skip butter entirely, however bhaji with out butter won’t taste authentic.
Gluten Free Version
To make a gluten-free version, all you need is gluten free buns. You can use multi-purpose flour buns rather than wheat flour. To make bhaji there is no change required as bhaji is fully gulten free in this recipe.
Pro Tips
- The bhaji need to be mashed well, so mash it properly till you don’t see any chunks of vegetable.
- Butter is a key element in this recipe. It won’t give exactly the same taste as you get in market, if you try to use less butter. Be generous with butter.
- Here in my recipe, I have used a iron kadhai to make the vegetable mixture and then used the big tava for tempering. However, you can use same pan for both the steps.
- You can skip using grated cauliflower and increase the quantity of boiled potatoes. To get the same taste as found in restaurants use cauliflower.
- I have used tomato puree just to give nice colour to bhaji without using artificial colour. You can add colour if you want or can totally skip. In case you not using tomoto, just increase the quantity of lemon juice little bit to get that bit of sour taste.
Serving suggestions
Serve Pav and bhaji hot, along with a slice of lemon and onions. Make sure that bhaji is ready before you do anything with bun. Subsequently, toss up the pav / bun in butter from both sides and slice through the pav and toss the inside bit of bun too in butter.
You may also like to try Vada Pav, another Mumbai street food.
Below is the detailed step by step recipe of scrumptious pav bhaji.
Recipe Card
Pav Bhaji | How to make Bhaji for Pav Bhaji – step by step
Ingredients
- 1 Cup Capsicum Chopped
- 1 Cup Tomato Chopped
- 1 Cup Onion Chopped
- 2/3 Cup Cauliflower Grated
- 2/3 Cup Green Peas
- 2 Boiled Potatoes Medium Sized
- 2 Green chillies Finely Chopped
- 8 Tablespoon Butter
- 1.5 Tablespoon Oil
- 1 Teaspoon Cumin Seeds
- 1.5 Tablespoon Pav Bhaji Masala
- 1.5 Tablespoon Ginger Garlic Paste
- 1.5 Tablespoon Tomato Purée Concentrated
- 1.5 Teaspoon Salt
- 1/2 Teaspoon Red Chilli Powder
- 1/3 Teaspoon Turmeric Powder
- 1 Tablespoon Dried Fenugreek Leaves / Kasuri Methi
- 1 Teaspoon Garam Masala Powder
- 1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
- 1 Tablespoon Fresh Coriander Leaves
- 8 Pav Bread
Instructions
- Take a Kadai/Pan or a Tava(skillet) in which you are planning to make bhaji. Add 1.5 tablespoon of oil to it. Once heated, add cumin seeds to it. Add all of chopped capsicum, grated cauliflower and 1/2 cup onions and saute till they are tender.
- Add chopped tomatoes, chopped chillies, boiled and mashed potatoes and green peas to it and mash them with potato masher and saute till they are all soft and water is evaporated.
- Add 1/2 tablespoon pav bhaji masala, 1/2 teaspoon salt, red chilli powder, turmeric powder and half of garam masala and kasuri methi to it.
- Mix well and saute for few more minutes and switch off the flame.
- Take this mixture out and on the same pan add 2 tablespoon of butter. Now add rest of the chopped onions and saute till they are translucent.
- Add Ginger Garlic paste and saute till the raw smell evades. Add rest of the pav bhaji masala.
- Now add tomato puree concentrate. Iused this just to get nice colour for bhaji, you can totally skip it if you don’t like to add. Mix well and saute for 2 minutes.
- Now add the bhaji mixture (prepared earlier), rest of salt and garam masala and mix it well. Add 1/4 cup water and saute this mixture for few minutes while mashing it in between.
- Add rest of kasoori methi with 2 tablespoon of butter and saute again till it reaches your desired consistency.
- Add lemon juice, mix well and Switch off the flame. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves.
- On a different pan slit the pav in centre and toast them with 1 tablespoon of butter.
- Now serve the pav bhaji hot topped with rest of the butter and some chopped onions.
Notes
- The bhaji need to be mashed well, so mash it properly till you don’t see any chunk of vegetable.
- Butter is a key element in this recipe, so it won’t give exactly the same taste as you get in market, if you try to use less butter.
- Here in my recipe, I have used a iron kadhai to make the vegetable mixture and then used the big Tava for tempering. However, you can use same pan for both the steps.
- You can skip using grated cauliflower and increase the quantity of boiled potatoes, however I found it quite similar in taste with the shops with using cauliflower.
- I have used tomato puree just to give nice colour to bhaji without using artificial colour, you can add colour if you want or can totally skip. In case you not using tomoto, just increase the quantity of lemon juice little bit to get that bit of sour taste.