Vada pav is one of the most popular foods in Mumbai, probably most selling street food in Mumbai. Everybody likes vada pav as it is tasty, simple and less costly food. You can have Mumbai street style vada pav for seven or eight bucks and easily available everywhere in Mumbai. Most important thing is that its sale is so high that means street food vendors can easily sell their fried vada on the same day. So foodies know that they will get fresh food. That is why they will not hesitate to buy vada pav from street food vendors.
Each food has its own story. It has origin and native place too 🙂 . As you already know vada pav’s native place is Maharashtra and very popular in Mumbai. It has people who love it and the place where they meet, haha. People from every class & society love this and do not hesitate to enjoy batata vada with pav at a roadside food stall. If you ever walk through road in Mumbai, Nashik or Pune and encountered with a vada pao stall, then you can see people from construction labor to super-rich, all asking for this. It has also its own status as street food. You can find specific Wikipedia page of this food what shows its status and popularity also.
If you are living in Mumbai or in any other city in Maharashtra or ever visited those cities then you must have idea about vada pav. You must have tasted this too. But those who are living in other states and never tasted this food but still they must have heard about this street food because of Bollywood movies.
This street food includes batata vada, pav (Indian bread – ladi pav) and masala, spices & chutney. Batata or potato vada is prepared with potato, spices, gram flour and deep fried. But if you do not want to deep fry by using enough oil then taste will not be affected that much. But you can not maintain that round shape if you are using less oil and you may face difficulties in frying equally in all sides of batata vada. So if you want to try this at home then you can avoid deep frying by sacrificing nice round shaped evenly fried vada. But you can manage to maintain the same taste.
Most important aspects or factors in this are three magical chutney. These are green chutney (coriander leaves chutney), garlic chutney and red sweet chutney. You can make last two optional but better to have these all. I made a tricky act here. Here I have avoided adding red sweet chutney and brought sweetness in garlic chutney by adding date (khejur). It helps me to manage so many ingredients while you serving vada pav. In some cases, people simply avoid garlic chutney as everyone does not like garlic. Now you do not need to make pav as due to the popularity of pav bhaji, traditional Mumbai style pav (ladi pav) is widely available in many other states also.
Vada is also popular in Gujarat also. During rain, having vada pav with a cup of tea and chatting with friends is simply the most enjoyable moment to many people. So it is available in almost all colleges canteen, office canteen, marketplaces, tourist places and office places in Mumbai, Pune and Nashik.
Here I have added carrot (gajar) in vada to add some special taste and break monotonous traditional taste. Grated carrot brings a unique flavor to vada. People who try to avoid potato /aloo/batata can try this recipe. I have tried both recipes at home and liked both. But if you have not yet tasted traditional batata vada then you must try batata vada pav first then next time you can try this with carrot one too. You can follow the same recipe just avoid to add carrot and do as the instruction given to make vada.
- For vada stuffing
- Potato / aloo - 3 medium size
- Carrot - 1 medium size (avoid if want to make traditional vada)
- Garlic - 4-5 cloves (paste / finely chopped)
- Asafoetida / hing - 1 pinch
- Coriander leaves - 7-8
- Kadi patta - 15-16 leaves
- Green chilli/ hara mirch - 3-4
- Turmeric powder / haldi - 1 tsp
- Cumin powder / jeera - 1.5 tsp
- Salt - as needed
- For batter making
- Gram flour/besan - ⅔ cup
- Turmeric powder / haldi - 1 tsp
- Red chili powder / lal mirch - ½ tsp
- Salt - as needed
- Water - as needed
- Oil - as needed
- Boil potatoes and peel skin of all potatoes and mash with a masher and keep aside for further use
- Now heat oil in a pan and add garlic, kadi patta, green chillies, turmeric powder, cumin powder, hing / asafoetida, coriander leaves, salt and saute for 2-3 minutes
- Now add grated carrot and fry for 3-4 minutes and add mashed potatoes and mix with all other ingredients
- When you have done with mixing mashed potatoes with spices and can smell the nice mouthwatering flavor of spices and garlic, switch off the flame
- Now make small balls with that stuffing item
- Now mix all ingredients for batter and make not so thick or watery batter
- Dip potato stuffing ball in batter and deep fry in oil
- Now heat butter in a pan and cut pav horizontally and put on that pan for 30 seconds
- Take one vada inside pav and add chutneys and serve hot
Chutneys for Mumbai street style vada pav:
Green coriander leaves chutney recipe :
Wash 10-12 coriander leaves, take 2 cloves of garlic, 2 green chillies, lemon juice and 1 tsp water and blend all.
Garlic chutney recipe :
Take 5-6 garlic cloves, grated coconut 1/3 cup, 1.5 tsp red chilli powder, 1/2 tsp turmeric powder, 1/4 cup peanuts and saute in a pan in low simmer and rest for 5 minutes. Now add salt and blend all roasted items together.
Make these chutneys little more extra and store in the refrigerator. So that you do not need to make Enjoy hot Mumbai street style vada pav at home.
So do you love spicy foods? Want to make such foods at home and surprise others, then try the easy cheesy veg burger, magic soya granules with noodles, pav bhaji, dahi vada etc.
Thanks For Sharing this amazing recipe. My family loved it. I will be sharing this recipe with my friends. Hope the will like it.