PAV BHAJI MASALA POWDER AND BHAJI

Tried and tasted by Nivedita

Hi All,

Not understanding how to start this post. Very happy to try this at home. In this busy life, we are depending more and more on store bought food or ready to make food and these masala powders. We get ready masala powders for every food  from each corner of the world. We have become lazy and it is taking our health into a crazy world. If you are my regular follower, you have seen me avoiding ready masalas. I always tried to make everything at home from the scratch except those Chinese food. There also I tried to make home make powders whenever possible. Now I have decided to make all the powders at home. So I browsed many blogs, websites to get the recipes and collected lot of recipes. 

PAV BHAJI :  Though it is from Maharashtra, specifically Mumbai, now a days Pav bhaji has become an essential and very common street food of India.Its tangy, spicy flavor attracts everyone. Pav Bhaji is very regular food in my house. We all love to eat Bhaji even without Pav. Many times I planned to make the masala powder at home but was scare that I may not get the same taste of what we get from the shop bought powder. 

But I was wrong, I can give 9/10 marks to my masala powder as it tasted exactly the street food. Why one marks less? Because of the color factor they add into it. And one new trial was I have used Guntoor dry red Chillies where as all the recipes asked for Kashmiri dry red chilli. 

When I searched the ingredients for this masala powder, most of the ingredients are basic and same, but few demanded to add black salt, chaat powder.

After going through all the recipes, I settled down with Hebbar's Kitchen homemade pav bhaji masala powder. But here also I added more amchur powder as I felt the quantity given in the recipe is less.

I have given the recipe for powder and the bhaji also.

First Let's start the recipe for the masala powder:

I am taking exactly from the site except red chilli and aamchur powder

Makes ONE CUP OR 220 ml 

Ingredients :

4 tbsp coriander seeds 

2 tbsp cumin seeds

2 bay leaf 

10 cloves 

2 cardamom

2 inch cinnamon stick( Please take care to use the real Cinnamon(Round and spiralled, as what we get those flat long ones are not real cinnamon and they are not good for health.)

1 tbsp pepper

¾ tbsp saunf 

10 dried Guntoor red chili (Please use Kashmiri dry red chilli, if available, it gives the color to the powder)

1 tsp turmeric powder 

2 tbsp  aamchur powder(How I wish I could make this dry mango powder at home!)

Procedure : 

Keep all the ingredients ready.

Take a thick bottomed pan and keep it on slow flame.

Be sure you are there till the roasting is done. As if any ingredient is over roasted or burnt, the flavor is a failure. 

First roast the coriander seeds and cumin seeds on a low flame, once you get the aroma, transfer it into a plate.

Next roast the peppers and saunf. After transferring this to the same plate, add bay leaf, cloves, cardamom and cinnamon and roast for just half a minute. Take these out and add red dry chillies, roast till they you feel the aroma. Take all the roasted ingredients in the plate and allow it to cool. 

Once cool add the turmeric powder and aamchur powder,

Mix well and grind into a fine powder. 

Remove, mix well and store in a box, preferably glass one. You can store it for 3 months at least, But in my house this quantity is only for a month as i use this masala powder to make VAANGI BAATH, TAWA PULAO, EGG RICE and sometimes in the MASALA UPMA too. 

Actually, I have my old PAV BHAJI post here, but still thought of posting it once again as the vegetables used in that are different. But it is a pictorial post. Please do visit. 

Coming to this recipe, 

Serves 6 persons

Ingredients: 

To boil:

• Potato - 4 to 6 big
• Peas - 1 cup(I love to use dried peas, soaking it for few hours or over night and boiling them with other veggies, as I feel you get the taste of street food.)  You can use the frozen or fresh peas too. 
• Cauliflower - 1 cup (cut into florets) Again here I always hated to add this veggie into bhaji where as all my friends loved it. I was using beans and carrot, but once when I tried this combination, even I liked the taste. But if you don't like it or it is not available you can skip it and add one more potato or peas. But do not add Beans as it gives different flavor)
• Carrot - 1 big, cubed

To fry

• Oil  - 1 tbsp
• Onion - 2 big chopped
• Capsicum - 1 big, any color
• ginger garlic paste - 1 tsp
• Tomatoes - 2 to 3 big
• Tamarind paste - 1 tsp(Optional)
• Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
• Red chilli powder - 1 tsp or more if you want it spicy
• Sugar - 1 tsp
• Coriander leaves - handful, cleaned and chopped finely to garnish
• Fresh butter or Amul butter - 1 tbsp to garnish

Procedure : 

• Take potatoes in a  cooker vessel. Add water to cover the potatoes.
• Take the peas(if using soaked ones), carrot in another vessel. Add little water. 
• Keep it in a cooker and allow 3-4 whistles.
• Till it gets cool,
• chop the onions, tomatoes and capsicum or bell pepper
• Open the cooker and take out the potatoes. Peel and mash it with the potato masher.
• Mash the boiled peas also.
• Heat oil in a wide thick bottomed vessel. I use another cooker. 
• Add the onions when oil is hot, cook till it changes its color. 
• Add ginger-garlic paste and saute it. Add chopped tomatoes(even puree will be ok). Mix well and cook till the raw smell of tomato goes.
• Add the capsicum and florets, Mix well and allow it to cook till the capsicum turns soft. 
• Now add the fresh bhaji masala powder, salt, turmericpowder and red chilli powder , tamarind paste. Mix well. Cook for half a minute. 
• Now add mashed potatoes and peas. Add little water. Mix well. close the lid and cook for two minutes. 
• Add some more water( around 2 cups). Add sugar. Mix well again and cook for 3-4 minutes. Open the lid and check the taste. Adjust the seasoning. Cook for another few minutes. Sprinkle fresh coriander and a tbsp of fresh butter. Keep it aside to serve. 

AND THE TASTE WAS JUST AS PERFECT AS THE SHOP BOUGHT MASALA POWDER. 

To serve we need :

Per plate:

Pav - 2, toasted both the sides with little butter

Onion - 1 small

Fresh coriander - 1 tbsp

Lime - a quarter piece.

Butter - 1 to 2 tbsp

Take a serving bowl or plate.

Add the bhaji. Garnish with butter, onion and fresh coriander. 

Serve with pav and lime. 

Please check some more similar recipe from my blogging friends:

pav-bhaji from Sapana of  CookingWithSapana

Mumbai Pav Bhaji from Jayashree of Ever Green Dishes

Pav Bhaji from Nayna of simplysensationalfood and

Pav Bhaji from Avin of The Yellow daal

Keep smiling, 

Restaurant style White Color Veg. Pulao

Tried and tasted by Nivedita,

Hi All,

When it comes to rice, I go weak. I can't stop eating rice in any form, any style and any time.

If I go out to restaurants I always prefer to taste different types of rice preparation. Some I have tried and failed, some were disaster, few I could prepare almost near to the perfection. This is one among those successful recipes.

Though I have tasted this many times but was lazy to prepare at home. But last week I just planned to put my effort to recreate this restaurant style Veg.pulao and I got it almost same or according to my kids it was better than the restaurant taste.😍😊. And again I tried it this week and the result was same.

Without boasting much, I am coming to the recipe.

First time I used basmati rice and second time I used Jeera rice. If we use biryani leaves then it tastes just like Basmati. Nothing much difference except the aroma.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

Rice - 1 1/2 cup(Basmati or Jeera)

Mix vegetables - 1 1/2 cup( I have used beans, carrot and fresh green pea. You can add corn and paneer too. I love the paneer and corn in it but i didn't have)

Green capsicum - 1 medium, cubed

Green chilli - 2, slit(avoid if you want bland taste)

Onion - 1 big, finely sliced

Oil - 1/4 cup

Star anseed - 1 whole

Tej patta - 2 big

Jeera(cumin seeds) - 1 TSP

Ginger garlic paste - 1tsp(fresh made tastes good)

Salt to taste

Ghee 1 tsp+1tsp

Cashew nuts -1 tbsp, cut into pieces

Lime juice - 2 TSP

Fresh coriander and mint leaves - handful, cleaned, washed and chopped.

Water - as per the instructions on the packet. Mine is  rough measurement. Usually I take 

 1: 1 1/2 ratio or most of the times it's just an eye measurement)

DRY WHOLE MASALA - 1 1/2 TBSP:

BLACK PEPPER - 20TO25(depends on how strong the quality is and reduce if you want mild spicy taste. PLANNING TO USE WHITE PEPPER CORNS NEXT TIME TO GET PERFECT WHITE PULAO. 

Green cardamom -2(or 1 green and half of black elaichi)

Cloves - 4 to 6

Cinnamon - 1 inch 

Dry fry all the masalas and keep aside(keep it coveres to save the aroma)

Preparation:

• Wash the rice twice and soak it for 15 minutes atleast. Drain the water and keep it aside.
• Cut all the vegetables in to cubes. 

Parboil or steam the vegetables for few minutes, take care not to make it soft. 

• Now coarse powder the dry masalas and again keep it covered.
• Fry cashew nuts in 1 TSP ghee. 
• Cook the rice either in a cooker or open thick bottomed vessel. Add little salt and a TSP of ghee and 1tsp of coarse masala and star anseed. Again rice should be parboiled. 
• Just check the water once rice is parboiled. If there is still water drain it. It's safer to cook it very less water. Because if we need to remove the water,  then all the flavour will go off with the water. Or if you must drain the water, use the water to cook the vegetables. 
• Now, take again a thick bottomed and wide kadai  or another cooker pan and keep it on medium flame.(By the way, my friends laugh at me for keeping cookers of all the sizes, I have cookers from 1litre to 10litres. But I know the importance of using cooker, how it is helpful.)
• Add oil. Once hot, add Jeera and onion together. Fry till golden brown. 
• Now add ginger garlic paste. Saute it on low flame till onion gets brown. 
• Now add the boiled vegetables and saute it slowly for a minute.
• Add remaining garam masala powder and salt. Remember there is already salt in the rice.
• Mix well, add the rice and lime juice.
• Mix it slowly, close the lid and cook on very low flame for 10 minutes. Don't allow it to whistle.
• If using open kadai, then close it with thick lid and keep some weight on it to avoid the rice  getting  it burnt. 
• Once cool, spread the fried cashew and chopped coriander. 
• Serve hot with onion raita. 

It tastes good even after its cold😉. 

To make onion raita:

Onion - 1 big, finely cubed

Fresh curd - 1 cup

Salt to taste

Fresh coriander and mint leaves 1 TSP chopped finely. 

Mix all the above ingredients in a serving bowl. Onion raita is ready.

Waiting for your comments. 

Keep smiling,