Vada Pav

The sound of those two words together, like that, make my mouth water… Being a 'Mumbaikar' I guess I have been trained that way :)

Ingredients:

For filling:
2 potatoes boiled, peeled and roughly chopped
asafoetida (hing)
Cumin (jeera)
Mustard seeds (rai)
Udad dal
Green chillies
Garlic crushed/ chopped finely
Curry leaves
Tumeric
Salt to taste
Oil (for cooking and deep frying)

For batter:
Gram flour
Salt
Water
Hot oil

"Bread":
I used medium sized dinner rolls. These tend to be slightly sweet, but I lucked out.

Chutneys:
1) Mint chutney
Mint leaves
Cilantro
Green chillies
Roasted cumin powder
Rock/ pink salt
Salt
Lime juice
Blender

2) Sweet tamarind chutney
This recipe: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/sweet-tamarind-chutney/

Directions:

Chutneys
- Blend all ingredients of green chutney in a blender. Use as little water as possible to speed up blending process
- Follow recipe link to prepare sweet chutney.
- These can be prepared in advance and store in the fridge (or freeze in batches for long term use)

Vada
- Heat oil in a pan. Add asafoetida, mustard seeds and udad dal. When these crackle add cumin seeds, curry leaves, garlic and green chillies. Saute for a minute.
- Add potates, tumeric and salt. Mix well, cover and let "cook" on medium high for 2-3 minutes.
- Set aside.
- Once slightly cool, tightly shape mixture into golf sized balls = 'vada'

Batter
- Mix gram flour, salt and water to make a thick paste (consistency of a brownie batter/ cake)
- Heat a little oil (1Tbsp for every cup of flour) in a pan and add to this paste. Mix well.

Cook
- Heat oil for deep frying.
- Coat the vada with prepared gram flour paste
- Deep fry until vada is golden brown.
- Place on a paper towel to drain excess oil.

Assemble
- Slit the dinner roll half (refer to pic below)
- Use green chutney on one half and sweet chutney on other half of cut bread. Use as much or as little as you want, per taste.
- Place vada in between the two halves of bread.
- Optional: stir fry some semi-hot green chillies in oil, add salt and serve on the side.

Serve hot!!!!!!

~~Cook, Share, Enjoy!~~