pav bhaji @ M

By memajha

September 8, 2007

Category: Personal

4 Comments »

Friday evening, most of the things happen on friday evening. Most of the people leave early, but it always has to be me who has some urgent work to complete..Why can’t things normally happen to me which happen to seemingly all the other people in the world !! I have pondered and resigned to Fate ..!! Do I need to read the book First Things First ?! I Must..

Finally at 8:00 PM on Friday evening we were free to go home. So while the walk from office bldg to Bus Station discussions were on between me and M about the weekend plan. He was going to play badminton and I will be at home..blogging or logging on to n number of websites..But the plan for Friday evening [i mean whatever was left of it ?] ? We decided to make Pav Bhaji..its been long that the cook in me resurfaced.

M and I shopped, peas,ginger, pav, simla mirch, beer [not required for pav bhaji..!] chips [also optional. The rest he had frozen in his kitchen, including potatoes. ]. A quick hunt for Garlic Bread for one of our freinds whom we met in the shopping complex added that extra zing. It was just in time since we had a bus at 8:59 to M’s place. Its been a long time that I had been to M’s place.

While in the Bus we remembered that the Pav Bhaji masala was not there. Decided to use Kitchen King masala or whatever was available.

Once in the kitchen, M turned into a Slicer/Dicer and as i watched he gleefully cut onion/ginger/garlic. I struggled with frozen potatoes, cabbage, cauliflower and mix of other vegetables. Finally every thing in a cooker and lo..its done after 3 whistles. Quick round of Garlic Bread consumption ensured we did not faint while cooking the pav bhaji.

When I return home from the office, i am usually very hungry and succumb to junk food like chips/cakes till the time dinner is prepared [by me ..as i live all alone..i have to feed myself before i am in a condition to feed myself again..!! ]. This time i resisted that urge and had only a small portion of garlic bread. I wanted to concentrate on Pav Bhaji. M himself is a good cook and experiments with a lot of South Indian/Chinese/Thai/Mexican stuff..you name it and he has tried out.Not sure how much of it makes to the stomach and how much to the thrash bin..!!

Thoda Khao Thoda Phenko..

The flame was lit, the pans in place, oil poured in and following things were added in Onion, Garlic, Ginger, Green Chili, Tomatoes, Kitchen King Masala, Coriander powder, salt and all mashed in with the spatula till it was a fine gravy. A look into the cooker and we concluded that the vegetables were nicely cooked. Guess we were correct about the number of whistles but a good amount of water still remained. We vaporized the remaining water and we had a good blend. M comments were in full force..as he was watching and helping me do all the stuff..it was now upto me to add that extra mile to this pav bhaji. We were not confident if Kitchen King normal masala can be a substitute for Pav Bhaji Masala..
After adding a nice portion of butter , we added the vegetables to pan already containing the masala and then it was the usual mashing and lo the pav bhaji was ready.

One thing that i have never been successful is at frying those pavs in butter as the usual pav bhaji thela’s do. Its an art. the pav should not taste burnt, it should have that softness and that favoured golden colour. The best butter to use for Pav Bhaji is undoubtedly Amul Butter. We then added red chilli to bring in that colour [generally food grade colour is added to those thela wala pav bhaji's for that red color and generally even after u wash your hands this colour will not go at least for may be 2/3 hours.]

Here in Amsterdam , we used the room botter <unlike the usual packed and branded butters], its the nearest to Amul Butter minus that extra salt.

Some of our pav’s got burnt…[beggars have no choices !!] as of now we were so hungry and we had no choice. Not all were burnt may be only 2 out of the 6/7 . A generous addition of spring onion and lemon ensured that we were right on the gastronomical track..So Pavs were ready and so was Bhaji..

After putting Pav Bhaji/Chips and Beer on the table we settled on the couch..Switched on TV..Henin Vs Williams ..American Open..Great..What a timing man ..

As I relished the Pav Bhaji..M tasted it too and what he said made all the efforts worthwhile.And what did he say ?

“Jannat..!!

This time..Saab Kuch Khao..Kuch Mat Pheko..

Next Friday..may be a different plan..or ..may be a new dish ..or no plan at all ?

Cheers

MeMajha

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