Where it comes from
Born as a fast midnight meal for Bombay's textile mill workers, cooked on a huge flat tawa from whatever vegetables the day left over. The pav itself is a Portuguese inheritance.
Method
- 1
Boil the vegetables
15:00Cook potato, cauliflower and peas until very soft, then mash roughly.
- 2
Fry the base
12:00Melt butter, soften onion and capsicum, add tomato and pav bhaji masala and cook until jammy.
- 3
Mash it on the tawa
10:00Add the vegetables and keep mashing with the back of the ladle, splashing in water, for a full ten minutes.
- 4
Toast the pav
05:00Split the rolls and press them face-down in butter and a smear of the bhaji until golden.
- 5
Serve loud
02:00Finish the bhaji with butter, lemon, raw onion and coriander.
Cook's notes
- The colour comes from Kashmiri chilli in the masala, not from tomato alone.
- More mashing, more butter — that is the whole street-stall secret.
