Nupur's Pav Bhaji

If you could see me now, as in right now, you would see my head hanging down in shame, my eyes looking down to my feet, which is not exactly the most pleasant sight on earth, but better than the boring beige carpet.

For one, I am ashamed that I am a sorry human momma who is doing nothing for the oil slick pelican momma in Louisiana.

I am Sorry.

For second, this one is not as grave as the first but still I should be ashamed that I did not make India's famous street food Pav Bhaji at home until day before yesterday.

In the time and era which I grew up, Pav Bhaji was not heard of where we lived. Even if some third removed Mumbaikar cousin ever mentioned it, the adults dismissed it as "Pauruti-Tarkari" and no one showed any further interest.

Much later when I lived in Bombay, now Mumbai on my new found independence for a very short time, I was introduced to Vada Pav and Pav Bhaji.

I thought Pav Bhaji was healthy, wholesome and NOT deep fried. I therefore chose to live on the deep fried goodness of Vada Pav, saying a polite No to Pav Bhaji.

Still later in a narrow littered street in the US, lined with stores named "Payal" , "Shalimar" and "Udipi Bhavan", I had Pav Bhaji in a small chaat place.

This time I chose Pav Bhaji because I thought Pav Bhaji was healthy, wholesome and NOT deep fried. I loved it enough to go back several times to have just Pav Bhaji with nary a glance towards the shammi kabab on the husband's plate.

I loved the buttery soft pav, the spicy bhaji with red onions, the pat of guilt butter. But never did I want to make Pav Bhaji at home, because I thought it was too much work. I thought you needed to chop at least ten vegetables and if I would/could chop ten vegetables for one single mashed up dish, even if it is India's most famous street food, I would...well...not be me.

I would buy a packet of Pav Bhaji Masala once in a while though, it felt like the right thing to do. This version of Pav Bhaji Masala in the pantry has been sitting there for the last six months now. It would have led a still longer, cozy, comfortable and relaxed life on the second row of the middle shelf if not for Nupur's Blog Bite #4.

So I took the Pav Bhaji Masala which by the way was Badshah and not the recommended Everest and declared that it better get to work and that in this hard time, its serene life was over. It would have to prove its worth in none other than Nupur's Pav Bhaji, who is a MarathiMaharashtrian and the recipe is her Aunt's who too is a MarathiMaharashtrian and the Pav Bhaji is Maharashtra's national dish, so it does not get more authentic than this.

Did I say, I loved the fact that Nupur did not use 10 different vegetables. Hallelujah.

The Pav Bhaji turned out to be an easy dish to make. It was pretty good given that I do not have much of a benchmark to compare. Like I have not had Sukh Sagar Pav Bhaji only backstreet US Pav Bhaji. Here I would also insist that if Nupur asks to use the Everest Pav Bhaji Masala, there is a reason she does that and so the Badshah (the one I had) will not deliver the same result.

I am going to make this next using Everest and I am sure that will give Sukh Sagar a run for its money. I am also going to get some of that soft Pav and indulge. I am going to take a vacation all by myself in Corfu, because I love Gerald Durrell and it will be very cheap. I am also going to fire everyone in BP.

For now I will send this to BB4:What's Lurking in the Kitchen ?


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Original Recipe

Nupur's Pav Bhaji

Pressure cook half head of a cauliflower and 2 peeled and cubed potatoes till tender and set aside.

Heat 2tbsp oil in a deep saucepan and saute the 1 chopped green bell pepper chopped till it starts browning on the edges.

Add 1/2 tsp of ginger paste, 1/2 tsp of garlic paste and saute some more.

Add 1/2 tsp turmeric powder, 1/2-1 tsp of chili powder to taste and salt to taste. Saute for a couple of minutes.

Add 2-3 cups of tomato puree. I added 3 whole peeled and canned tomatoes along with their juice.

Next add 1/2 cup peas, boiled potatoes and cauliflower, 1 tbsp or more Everest pav bhaji masala and 1 tbsp butter.

Keep frying and mashing it together till it is a smooth mixture, adding water as required (you can use a potato masher to help you along). Simmer for 20-25 minutes to really get the flavors to meld together. I also added a little sugar because my tomatoes were really tangy

Nupur says "You have to keep tasting and adjusting salt, masala and tomato till you like the balance between the tomato-ey tang and the heat of the masala. " -- This is important

Garnish with chopped red onion, chopped corriander, a wedge of lime and a pat of butter. Serve with buttered pav.

Trivia: The origin of Pav Bhaji is traced to the heyday of the textile mills in Mumbai. The mill workers used to have lunch breaks too short for a full meal, and a light lunch was preferred to a heavy one, as the employees had to return to physical labor after lunch. A vendor created this dish using items or parts of other dishes available on the menu. Roti or rice was replaced with pav and the curries that usually go with Indian bread or rice were amalgamated into just one spicy concoction-the 'bhaji'. Initially, it remained the food of the mill-workers. With time the dish found its way into restaurants and spread over Central Mumbai and other parts of the city via the Udipi restaurants

Quick Egg Pulao

If you have noticed I am on Twitter. But I don't Tweet all that much.

I want to. But I can't. Every morning I try to think something intelligent, or witty, or intelligent and witty, so that I can tweet it. But I can't. Nothing remotely clever pops up in my mind.

All I can think of is things like "I washed my hair today. It smells nice". But I don't tweet that. Why would anyone want to know, I think. Why, even the husband does not have time to stop and smell my hair, how can I expect 75 million Twitterers to be enlightened by that piece of news.

I can say how my morning was, how I drank my tea with two multigrain nabisco crackers, crackers because my stash of Marie and Parle G is depleted, depleted as in it is zero now. So until I go to the Indian Grocers and get my next supply of Britannia Marie and Parle G, I am stuck with multigrain crackers,which taste like cardboard but not as bad as cardboard, they are easily digestible, cardboard is not.

There, a vital piece of my personal life could be out there but twitter does not allow more than 140 characters. I am sure Twitter's founder Dorsey was scarred for life by a child like BS. You ask BS how her day was and you are stuck for the next hour, listening to how many times she scrubbed her hand with Purell in school.

"Keep it short", I tell her. "Give me the central idea", I say. "You will never be able to Tweet. People have no time these days to listen to long prattles. They spend it describing life in several 140 character snippets", I want to say.

LS, I think would make a good Tweeterer. Her sentences are short, 3 words at the most, rest is action, she can do video tweets.

So I thought I will ask a question instead, on tweeter and here. A simple 10 word question.

"Why does my rice tend to break in a Pulao?"

Why, even if the Pulao turns out tasting really good, some of the rice grains break. Why, my Dad asks, how I managed to break the rice grains as he thinks that is what made the Pulao tasty.

Is it something to do with the brand of rice I buy, for it is one of the cheaper ones. I think I have clinched a deal or something if I pick up a cheaper brand of rice, the kinds which say "Buy 1, get 2 free".

But if it is the brand, how come the grains remain perfect when my Mom makes a Pulao. I could ask her this question but I want to get as many opinions as possible. I also want to Tweet.

So please tell me here or on Twitter, "Why does my rice tend to break in a Pulao?"

After you are done, you won't have much time, so make this quick Egg Pulao, which is easy and totally delicious, broken rice or not. Kids will love this one, for once BS does. Ok, and she also makes a great Raita to go with it.


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Quick Egg Pulao

Make a paste of

1 medium onion
4 cloves of garlic
1" peeled and chopped ginger
1/2 cup of corriander
8-10 mint leaves
Note: Add very little water while making this paste, maybe 1-2 tsp

Wash 2 & 1/2 cups of rice in several changes of water and spread out to dry. This is my Mom's tip, I usually have no patience to dry the rice. But she says that the rice needs to be dry else it will break.

Heat Oil + 1/2 tsp Ghee in a flat, heavy bottomed pan

Temper the oil with 4 cloves, 5 cardamom, 2" cinnamon stick and 2 small bay leaves

Add the paste you made and fry till the masala is cooked. Any excess water should be evaporated and there will be oil seeping out of the edges of the masala

Add 1 cup of chopped mixed vegetables. It can be beans, carrots, peas etc. I added 1 cup of frozen corn, carrots and peas. Fry the vegetables for 3-4 minutes.

Add 1 tsp of Corriander Powder, 1/2 tsp of Garam masala powder and fry for a minute or so

Add the rice and fry for the next couple of minutes

Add 41/2-5 cups of water for 2&1/2 cups of rice. Add salt to taste. Let the water come to a boil. Once the water has come to a boil, reduce heat to low and cover and cook the rice.

While the rice is cooking boil 4 eggs in a separate pan. When eggs are boiled, cool and peel them. Cut egg in slices. Heat a little oil in a pan. Add 1/4 cup of chopped onions and fry till onion is brown. Add the egg slices, 1/2 tsp of Kashmiri Mirch, little salt and fry the egg slices for 2-3 minutes

Once the rice is done, add the fried egg mix on top and mix gently. Sprinkle some chopped coriander leaves and 1/2 tsp of Garam Masala powder. Cover and let it sit till you serve with a raita.

Similar Recipes:

Soy Peas Pulao

Soy Mushroom Pulao

Mint Rice -- Brown Rice

Daliya Pulao

Trivia: Here are some pictures from the book Hungry Planet, that I thought I would share with you. Click here to see What The World Eats.

Celery Chingri -- Celery with Shrimp

When I was a kid, I thought becoming an adult was the answer to all my woes. You could sleep in late, spend money to buy as many Archie comics as you could read not and you did not have to eat vegetables.

Little did I know what I was in for.

I mean being an adult is ok and everything but you never get to do the things you had imagined and you DO EAT vegetables. The worst part is you eat them even when no one is forcing you to and you even shop for them.

Take Celery. I never had tasted a celery until I started going to BS's pre-school kiddie birthday parties a couple of years ago. These would be at one jumping place or the other and kids would have pizza while all the parents were offered was carrot sticks and celery ribs with a veggie dip. I loved the dip, I thought the celery was an instrument to scoop up that delicious dip. To eat them was blah.

I would still get celery to put in a soup or something or to rot in the refrigerator until LS's Nanny last year said "Didi apnara celery'r tarkari khan na"(Didi don't you eat celery sabzi). She must have recognized me as the ideal candidate to go on a celery diet.

I got the celery and she made a dish, Celery Chingri, a sabzi with celery and shrimp. It really was good, way better than anything with celery could have tasted. Like it wasn't something to die for but it was decent and would make for a nice side dish and it had shrimps, so why complain.

At this point though, let me tell you, if celery is not a vegetable local to where you are, like if you are in Cambodia and you have never seen your Mom cook celery DO NOT go out and buy if it is overpriced. It is not worth it. In that case just eat the shrimp.

And what is the Paprika doing in the picture you might ask ? It is NOT in the dish, the dish has red chili Powder, no mild paprika. The Paprika is what a harassed BongMom gives to the toddler to distract, so that she can take a pic on an overloaded work night. The outcome is not good, the pic lighted with no fancy Lowell ego but plain-jane side table lamps does not exactly glamorize the celery and the paprika has been dumped on the beige carpet. If I never ever blog again you know why.

Entries for Of Chalks and ChopSticks is welcome until Friday June 10th, midnight simply because I have not posted my entry yet. Tee hee !! I am the Super Power at least this one time.


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Celery Chingri -- Celery with Shrimp

The Shrimp

If using frozen shrimp defrost else clean and de-vein. Sprinkle with little salt and turmeric powder and keep aside for 10 minutes. I had about 10-12 shrimps

The Celery

Chop the celery in really small pieces. Smaller than what you see in the pic.

The Celery Shrimp Sabzi

Heat Olive Oil in a saute pan

Fry the shrimp and remove and keep aside. When the shrimps are cool to touch, chop them in small pieces and eat a few

Add little more oil to the same pan if needed. Temper with 1 tsp of Paanch Phoron or Kalonji. If you have none of these use Cumin Seeds

When the spices sputter and pop, add 1/2 up of chopped red onion and little more. Fry the onion with a sprinkle of sugar till onion is pinkish brown

Add 1 heaped tsp of garlic paste and fry for say 1/2 a minute

Add 1 potato chopped in small cubes. Add 1/4 tsp of turmeric powder and fry the potatoes till light yellow

Add 1 tsp of roasted corriander powder and 1/2 tsp of red chili Powder.With a sprinkle of water fry the masala along with the potatoes.

Add about 2 cups of celery very finely chopped and mix everything well. The celery should be chopped thinner than shown in pic. Add salt to taste and cover the saute pan, letting the celery cook. Every couple of minutes remove the cover and stir the vegetables until done.

Taste for seasoning and adjust accordingly. If needed add a tsp of Garam Masala.

Add the shrimp pieces, give a good mix and serve with dal and other dishes.

Vegetarian Option: Instead of shrimp add fried pieces of paneer.