Pav bhaji was invented in the 1850s in the textile mill district of Bombay: a fast, filling meal for the city's mill workers who had limited lunch breaks. The pav (bread roll) came from the Portuguese padão, introduced to Goa and Bombay centuries earlier; the bhaji (spiced vegetable mash) was built on a tomato base thickened with potato and enlivened with pav bhaji masala; a specific spice blend without a precise analogue. The dish is the taste of Bombay: improvised, abundant, unapologetically rich with butter, and consumed standing at street carts. It is now the defining street food of Mumbai and one of the great dishes of the Indian subcontinent, a monument to the city's working-class ingenuity.
Ingredients
Bhaji
4 large potatoes, boiled and roughly mashed
1 cup cauliflower florets, boiled until soft
0.5 cup green peas
4 large ripe tomatoes, finely chopped
2 onions, finely diced
1 green capsicum (bell pepper), finely diced
5 garlic cloves, minced
2 cm fresh ginger, grated
2 tbsp pav bhaji masala
1 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder
0.5 tsp turmeric
80 g butter, plus extra for toasting
1 tsp salt
To serve
8 pav (soft bread rolls) or small soft white rolls
1 onion, finely diced, to serve
2 limes, cut into wedges
fresh coriander, chopped, to serve
Method
Melt half the butter in a large, wide, heavy pan (a tawa or flat griddle is ideal) over medium-high heat. Fry the onion for 8 minutes until golden. Add garlic, ginger, and green capsicum, fry 3 minutes more.
Add the tomatoes. Cook, mashing and stirring, for 10 minutes until the tomatoes completely break down and the mixture is very thick.
Add pav bhaji masala, chilli powder, and turmeric. Stir and fry for 2 minutes.
Add the mashed potato, cauliflower, and peas. Mash everything together vigorously with a potato masher; the bhaji should be a rough, thick mash, not smooth. Add a splash of water if it seems too thick. Add remaining butter, stir through, and season with salt.
Split the pav rolls and toast them cut-side down in a generous amount of butter on a flat pan until golden and crisp.
Serve the bhaji in a bowl or on a plate, topped with a knob of butter, fresh coriander, and diced raw onion. Serve the buttered pav alongside with lime wedges for squeezing over.
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