Funny enough, there is no pav or bhaji in Germany. Here are the prerequisites to make one home in steps:
Step 1: Plan on how to make pav bhaji from your Mom
Step 2: Buy 90% of the stuff on a Saturday morning.
Step 3: Go again to buy flour as the one in the student dorm cabinet was starting to ferment on its own.
Step 4: Start the 4 hour process on a beautiful Sunday morning.
The main problem that I had was I did not own a set of measuring cups, but I did have a weighing scale. Armed with the internet to convert cups to grams. I started experimenting. First thing was to start with the pav. Initially I thought, I would make half a bath of 5 pavs but who has time to make half of something. I can use the others tomorrow for breakfast. Feeling logical I started to make a full batch of 12 pavs.
I had bought all purpose flour numbered 550, used for making bread and Rewe had fresh yeast. Yeast, sugar and warm water followed by 300g of flour (this did not happen, I used a total of 500g of the flour while kneading). Knead it and wait for and hour. Prep the tray, cut into small chucks and again wait for an hour for proofing (There is way too much waiting!). Let them bake at 230C for 10 mins. This did not work for me. I had to keep them in for a while.
As they proof, I started to work on the main dish. If the pavs failed I didn’t mind, I had slice bread. But I needed the bhaji to work out. Without a mixer, I cut and diced ginger, garlic, lime juice, chili into a chutney (Mom’s pro tip: should have shredded it).
Chopped and diced the vegetables (onion, tomatoes, green capsicum and green peas) and also boiled the potatoes.
Butter in pan with cumin seeds, and followed by the usual order of veges; onions, capsicum, green peas. After letting it cook, add the tomatoes with water. Add the chutney and salt. Cook, smash, stir. Add the masala and smashed potatoes (I might have forgotten to add this). Finally, add coriander, butter and lime juice to finish it off.
And Voila, a bit raw pav and a pav bhaji which clearly tasted different as I did not have Kashmiri red chili.
Disclaimer: Do not follow these steps, kindly refer to a recipe .
