Mrs Patel’s Pav Bhaji
Pav bhaji is one of my favorite fast food Indian dishes. This vegetarian dish comes from Maharashtra in India and it consists of a thick vegetable curry usually prepared in a buttery sauce and onions and served with a soft bread roll.
I usually get this dish from Namaste Restaurant or from Saravana Bhavan. The latter is a worldwide chain that serves some of the best Southern Indian dishes and pav bhaji happens to be one that I usually order (along with a few other dishes!).
We recently had the pleasure of hosting Pastor Niral Patel‘s mother in Kechara Forest Retreat. During her stay here, she was kind enough to teach some of my students how to make this dish. So I had it filmed and recorded for you.
I wish to share her recipe with you to encourage vegetarianism. We should never hurt animals and the easiest way to stop doing this is to lessen our consumption of meat. So please try this recipe for yourself and let me know in the comments below how you found it.
Tsem Rinpoche
MRS. PATEL’S PAV BHAJI
(Serves 8)
INGREDIENTS:
- 8-9 potatoes, peeled and cubed
- 3/4 (three quarters) of medium cauliflower, cut into florets (roughly the same size as the potatoes so they cook at the same rate)
- 1 large aubergine, cubed (roughly the same size as the potatoes so they cook at the same rate)
- 500g frozen mixed vegetables
- 1/2 (half) garlic bulb, minced
- 6-7 small red onions, diced
- Ginger, thumbsized, minced
- 10 bird’s eye chilli (chilli padi), sliced
- Knob of unsalted butter (approx. 25g)
- 3 tomatoes, grated (without skin)
- 1 tbsp tomato puree
- 1 tbsp salt
- 1 tbsp pav bhaji masala
- 1 tbsp garam masala
- 1/2 tbsp turmeric
- Juice from 1 large lemon
- Oil for frying
- Coriander for garnish
OTHERS:
- White bread
- Butter
METHOD:
Part 1 – mashed vegetables
- Put into a pot the potatoes, cauliflower, aubergine and mixed vegetables. Cover with water until just above the vegetables, then bring to a boil. Boil for approx. 25 minutes or until cooked.
- When the vegetables are cooked to slightly softer than al dente, check the water level. If there is a lot of water, remove it and set it aside. You may need this water to thin out the pav bhaji later, without losing flavour.
- Mash the vegetable mixture with a potato masher until it has the consistency of thick rice congee.
Part 2 – onion-tomato paste
- In a food processor, blitz the garlic, onion and ginger into a paste. If you don’t have a food processor, finely chop the ingredients together.
- Fry in oil until the onions are soft and translucent.
- Combine the grated tomato and tomato puree, then add it into the frying pan with the onion-ginger-garlic mixture. Stir well to combine.
Part 3 – combining Parts 1 and 2!
- Put the mashed vegetables back onto the stove and on a low-medium heat, add in the onion-tomato paste from Part 2. Stir well to incorporate.
- Add the sliced bird’s eye chilli. Stir well to incorporate.
- Add the spices – pav bhaji masala, garam masala, turmeric, salt – and stir well to incorporate. Make sure the spices are really stirred in and dissolved.
- Add a knob of butter to the pot of boiled vegetables and stir until incorporated.
- Add the lemon juice and stir well to incorporate. Taste it and adjust the seasoning if necessary. If the mashed vegetables are too thick, thin down the mixture with some of the vegetable broth retained from Part 1.
- Garnish with coriander, and serve with buttered bread that has been toasted in a dry frying pan (no oil).
HOW TO MAKE PAV BHAJI
ILLUSTRATED STEPS
Six to seven small red onions (diced) with half a bulb of garlic (minced) and a thumb-sized piece of ginger (minced)
Three tomatoes (grated, without the skin)
Eight potatoes (cubed), three quarters of a medium cauliflower (cut into florets), one large aubergine (cubed), 500g of frozen mixed vegetables
Cover with water then boil until soft
Mash until broken down and the consistency of thick rice congee
Add the onion-tomato mixture to the mashed vegetables
Add the 10 sliced green bird’s eye chillis (chilli padi)
Stir the chillis then add the spices (pav bhaji masala, garam masala, turmeric, salt) and stir well, before adding a knob of butter
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Thank you for sharing this yummy recipe. It looks very delicious, healthy and nutritious. I can’t wait to try making it has the ingredients are easy to purchase and methods are simple. I wonder what it taste like.
https://bit.ly/37DAV7y
Food is always favorite topic. Thank you Rinpoche and Mrs Patel for sharing this healthy and nutritious recipe to us.
One day i shall try to cook
Just reading about this dish and how it is prepared, i just feel this such a deletable dish. For those who do cook a lot this is not a dish to be missed out.
This Pav Bhaji looks easy and delicious. I have no experience with Indian cooking but I think I will give this a try-out. And, it looks really “saucy”; lots of sauce to ‘banjir’ the the roti or rice with.
Thank you to Mrs Patel for sharing with us the recipe and steps to making this ‘Indian fast food’
Thank you, Rinpoche for caring and encouraging us to go vegetarian with beautiful and flavorful dishes like this.
Mrs Patel’s Pav Bhaji , a delicious vegetarian dish!
Amazing but true that a ‘fast-food’ dish can be delicious . It’s an Indian curry dish – a thick vegetable curry usually prepared in a buttery sauce and onions and served with a soft bread roll. Mrs Patel has explained how to prepare it and to cook it, very clearly and systematically.With this combination of my favourite vegetables with tomato and butter gravy,and throwing in the spice . it cannot be anything but tasty!
Thank you Mrs Patel . Thank you Rinpoche for sharing the recipe and how to prepare this dish.
Thank you Rinpoche for this article. Thank you very much also to Mrs Patel for the Pav Bhaji recipe. Thank you to Pastor Niral for giving the demonstration on how Pav Bhaji is cook. It looks very interesting and delicious. Will try to get my mum to cook in the near future. Perhaps I can comment further after trying this recipe. 🙂
With folded palms,
Vivian
This dish looks interesting and delicious! I love to eat and my mum loves too cook and try new dishes. Will ask mum to try this dish one day. Thank you Rinpoche and Mrs Patel for sharing this recipe with us _/\_
Cooking is both science and art. The precision of the ratio of ingredients and the creativity in mixing and matching the flavor make for a successful concoction. From this post and the video, I dare say Mrs Patel’s Pav Bhaji is a lethal combination of science and art. A must try for a homey Indian vegetarian meal. Thank you for sharing the recipe with us.
Thank you Pastor Niral,
your mum is a lovely India lady and I wish she will come here and open up a restaurant! We would so go for it every single day!
Please to thank Aunty for letting us all learn her secret to making this favourite dish!
They say Indian food is like food fit for the Gods as it has all kinds of spices, herbs and flavours and we now know why. The amount of preparations and details for every dish is amazing! Plus most of them have healthy benefits. Thanks again and hope to see your lovely parents here in KFR again 🙂
Thank you Rinpoche and Mrs. Patel for sharing the recipe. I love Indian food especially the breads and normally the curries and dishes take too much work to make so I just buy them. But I will certainly try Mrs. Patel’s recipe and it does really look yummy. It should go well with chapati!
It’s also in the spices. It’s the spice mix that makes the taste and what we have is the supermarket variety, one or two types for all. It’s difficult to get good curry powder these days.
I remember during my childhood my maternal grandfather in Singapore would make his own curry powder starting with the varieties of spices, lovingly washed and dried in the sun, meticulously picked and then ground till fine and then bagged into plastic bags to be sold to friends. Certainly limited edition, pure spices with no fillers and they were made in small batches. My mum would on occasion get a packet or two when she visited him and these would be treasured and used just sparingly. Oh I do miss grandpa’s curry powder.
Wow! Look yummy! I can even smell it just by watching at the video! =D
Thank you, for the recipe! Good video with detailed descriptions on each steps!
Have to cook it now, BYE!
Hahaha let us know how it turned out Mingwen! 🙂
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing Mrs. Patel’s recipe of Pav Bhaji. The video was very instructional and looks easy to follow. I have not had the chance to try out the recipe yet but the pictures of Pav Bhaji sure makes it look yummy. Vegetarian dishes certainly isn’t just boring and in India where many are vegetarians, there are many delicious dishes that does not require killing for meat. How wonderfully guilt free eating.
It has lots of vegetables in it and very nutritious, it looks very yummy, I bet it tastes yummy too… Vegetarian dishes ain’t that boring! 🙂
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing out the Pav Bhaji recipe by Mrs.Patel. Looks delicious and it is vegatarian dish very simple .easy to prepare. I will definitely try cooking this simple recipe soon.Thank you Mrs Patel for sharing this healthy vegetarian recipe and demostrating how to cook it in the video.
Mrs Patel’s Pav Bhaji really looks yummy! Thank you Mrs Patel for sharing the recipe and demonstrating the cooking of this healthy vegetarian dish which is not difficult to prepare to be cooked at home.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing out the Pav Bhaji recipe by Mrs Patel.
Pav Bhaji is one of my favorite Indian dish. Pav Bhaji is usually served with bread toasted with butter.
The recipe look easy, and i think everyone is able to try this at home. Most importantly it is vegetarian dish.
Thank you
Thank you Mrs. Patel for this video and recipe on Pav Bhaji, the pictures surely look very appetizing and I believe it was cooked with love especially for our Pastor Niral who may have missed home cooking food and this seems like gourmet dish for Pastor Niral.
Home cooked food is always the best particularly when it is cooked by our own mother where it is the same food we love and grew up with. I would love to try this recipe in the near future since I am also passionate on Indian food.
This is definitely i good way to understand that they are actually many many kind of foods can be served our hungry stomach. Vegetable can be cooked in many delicious way. Yet we don’t get those sentient being to be harmed. Thank you for Rinpoche always show us how to be kind to others. And Mrs. Patel to show this spectacular cooking recipe.
A very simple, yet very tasty recipe. Chemical-free and 100% vegetarian. Rinpoche first introduced us to this dish at Ananda Bhavan in Singapore, just outside Mustafa Shopping Centre. Their version is really good too, and it comes with diced red onions and half of a lime on the side. Don’t like it too spicy? Reduce the chillis. Prefer a rougher mash? Don’t smash the vegetables as much. And what’s great about pav bhaji is how kid-friendly it is…what kid wouldn’t like toasted bread with butter, filled with potatoes?!
OOOOO the pictures look so yummy!! I am hungry now and am dying for some of that Pav Bhaji! It looks delicious! Thank you Rinpoche for putting a smile on my face with that amazing and mouth-watering recipe. I will sure try it some day.
The best part about the recipe however is that it is 100% vegetarian. The fact that no animals needed to suffer for this dish makes me just that much better than other dishes. This is a morally right dish. And this also proves that meat or other animal products are not needed in food for it to taste good.
Hey Julien!
It’s a really simple recipe, try making it at home for your mum one of these days (with the supervision of an adult, of course…sharp knives, fire and all that!). And if you don’t have the spices, Vimala should be able to get them for you from Brickfields…that’s where we got ours from!
Wow, the Pav Bhaji looks so delicious. Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this recipe and video so we can learn it step by step.
Wow! That’s how you make Pav Bhaji. Looks real yummy. I only had a little that day because Mrs Patel’s was really quite spicy. I would reduce the chillies that go into and add more tomatoes and onions. It’s funny that I am saying these because I can’t cook but I really enjoyed the pav bhaji especially those from Saravanan bhavan that comes with the buns and looks of raw onions. Yummmyy…. Thank you P Niral, Mrs Patel and everyone else who made this delicious recipe available.