Garam Samosa

Not too long ago, I cooked Pav Bhaji for the first time ever. This vegetable-based curry is an iconic Indian Roadside Dish.  Pav Bhaji is a mashed up vegetable curry that is served with toasted bread. In my opinion, Pav Bhaji is like adult baby food. Adult because babies obviously can’t have masala and spices. Before I get into my review on my Pav Bhaji, let me go through some terminology.

• Pav is bread. Normally this is made fresh as well but I was too lazy to make it so I got Mum to buy some from our local supermarket.
• Bhaji is the Marathi word for vegetable or a vegetable-based dish.
• Pav Bhaji is a Marathi style dish that is originated in Mumbai. Hence the use of the Marathi word ‘bhaji’.

Now on to the review: for a while now I have found a new love for Pav Bhaji. I have always thought that Pav Bhaji was a delicate dish that took forever to make. I knew that this Mumbai style Marathi dish was a roadside dish but I never knew how easy it was to make. I love this dish even knowing that it is incredibly easy to make regardless of the numerous steps involved. I can sum up the steps into 1 and 2:

1. Boil desired vegetables and add to a dissolving tomato and masala curry.
2. Add some water, simmer and mash-up vegetables

It is as simple as that. The recipe I used actually explained this in such a way that there were literally a billion steps to everything. Anyways, the two steps above are the bhaji component of Pav Bhaji. I added more water after mashing up the vegetable and then simmered again to make a thick gravy style curry; to personalize it to my tasting.

Pav Bhaji can be easily personalised to one’s liking. It is a great way to have those five vegetable servings each and every day. One thing to keep in mind is that fact this dish has quite a lot of ghee or clarified butter, and bread. I would simply just use olive oil or any other healthier oil instead of the ghee or clarified butter. I would also reduce the number of potatoes or increase the amount of cauliflower. You could even use pumpkin as a replacement for potatoes. So many vegetables can be used in Pav Bhaji. If you absolutely hate a vegetable or know someone who does, you could just boil that vegetable and blend it till a paste is made and added it in. A good mix through and I am sure the “flavour” of that vegetable won’t even be there.

This review is quite short because there is nothing really to review. I just have always thought that Pav Bhaji was a delicate dish and it takes forever to make. To be honest, I am kind of let down that it is not a delicate dish but there is always beauty in simplicity, and stupidity 😉 .  This simple dish is by far one of my favourite dishes and would be a great way to eat vegetables.

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As always, thank you for being the Samosauce to my Garam Samosa!!!

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