Any way you can type up or link a recipe for that? My wife was going to make a vegetarian sloppy joe this week for one of our dinners and we both just agreed that this looks better than what we’d planned.
No problem if it’s too much work.
Supermarkets sell premade ones, which can be pretty decent, considering, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cup-a-pudding variant.
Hey Armando - have you ever been to India? Your presentation / descriptions just ooze that you spent 5 years wandering the various regions and mentored under the best cooks there. I’ve been there many times and while I enjoy the food, yours looks better ;-) And you continue to just nail the prose that wants me to reach through the screen and start wolfing it down, even after an awesome breakfast of real french toast with vanilla and cinnamon alongside artisan breakfast sausage ;-)
Oh that’s not too bad. Yeah, they use so much butter you go “holy shit can I really eat that?”
Tragically, not–I was super fucking envious of @CraigM’s recent work trip out there. I was introduced to the cuisine many years ago by my best friend and her family, who traveled there a lot and took me out to have some. I was entranced, and literally started to learn to cook in order to begin trying to replicate what I’d had with them (since there were no Indian restaurants in my podunk southern town at the time). In the intervening decade and a half, I’ve spent hundreds of hours pouring over recipe books, websites, Youtube channels, and documentaries, absorbing all I can. Not quite the real thing, but until I get a way better-paying job, it’ll have to do :)
I am glad that stuff looks and sounds legit to someone who’s really been there like you, though :-D
Totally! I am gonna recommend you grab a pre-made Pav Bhaji spice blend online (if you’ve got Prime, you can have this by Tuesday):
Mostly because otherwise, unless you keep a veritable storehouse of unusual spices handy like I do (seriously–who the heck keeps half a pound of mace around?!), making the blend is a real bear.
The recipe can look a little intimidating, but tbh, it’s mostly just a shit-ton of veggie chopping followed by lots of boiling and simmering. You can add and remove veggies from the mix to your preference, though I’ll note that the onion, ginger, garlic, and potatoes are pretty essential for flavor and texture reasons.
Pav Bhaji
Ingredients
- 2 medium Russet Potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
- 1 small head Cauliflower, stemmed and roughly chopped
- 8oz fresh or frozen Green Peas
- 3-4 medium Carrots, roughly chopped
- Water
- Unsalted Butter (lots)
- 2 medium Red Onions, diced, ~1/4 cup reserved
- 1 medium Green Bell Pepper, diced
- 1 1/2 tbsp Ginger-Garlic Paste (blended Ginger, Garlic, and a bit of oil–if you don’t want to make that, about 2-3 tsp each minced garlic and ginger work fine)
- 1-2 Green Chilies (1 Jalapeno if you don’t like a lot of spice, 2 Serranos if you like a lot), diced
- 1 1/2 - 2 tbsp Pav Bhaji Masala
- ~2 tsp Kosher Salt (or to taste)
- 14 oz can Chopped/Diced/Pureed Tomatoes
- 2 tbsp Cilantro Leaves, chopped
- Lemon
- Soft Rolls/Buns (e.g., Hawaiian Rolls, Potato Buns, etc.)
Directions
In a pressure cooker or large stockpot, add the potatoes, cauliflower, green peas, and carrots with enough water to cover, plus about a tsp of salt. Cook until softened completely. For the pressure cooker, that’s about 4-5 minutes under high pressure, for a stockpot, probably more like 15. Reserve the veggies and cooking water.
In a large stockpot or dutch oven, melt about 2 tbsp of butter. Add in the red onions and about a tsp of salt and sweat, stirring, until softened (about 3-4 minutes). Add in the green bell pepper and cook another 5-6 minutes, until the veggies are starting to take on a little color. Add in the ginger garlic paste (or minced garlic/ginger) and cook about a minute and a half, stirring more now to prevent it from sticking. Add in the green chilies and cook another minute or so.
Add in the pav bhaji masala and let it cook in the hot oil and veggies for about 30 seconds or so before adding in the tomatoes, stirring well to scrape up any stuck bits. Bring it to a simmer and cook, covered, about 10 minutes, or until completely softened.
Add in the reserved, boiled vegetables and mix everything together. Use a potato masher or wooden spoon to smash to your desired consistency–I like it a little chunky. If you like it thinner and soupier, add in more water and mash well.
Add in the cilantro and about 4 tbsp more butter, stirring to combine.
To serve, heat half a tbsp of butter in a skillet until bubbling, then split the buns/rolls and sear them, cut-side down in the butter until browned and crisp. Squeeze lemon juice over top the bhaji (the curry) and, if you’d like, garnish with the reserved, raw red onions, extra cilantro, and extra butter. You can either pour over the bread or serve them separately, to your preference (picture of the latter attached):
You can easily double or triple the butter (down to reheating the bhaji curry in a skillet with even more butter on subsequent servings) if you want to get closer to the street food style, but as prepared above, it’s still extremely rich while remaining surprisingly healthy.
You are the man. I’m sending to my wife and I’ll let you know how it goes.
Please do! It’s genuinely one of my favorite Indian recipes–would love to know if it turns out well for y’all :)
Speaking of being there, have you ever tackled pani puri? There are several varieties, savory with potatoes to sweet yougurt sauces, but it’s a fun snack.
Though beware, you’ll likely eat half a dozen or more each.
You would enjoy it. I wish I could grab every American that ever complains about something here and drag them with me when I do get to go. You come away with a much higher appreciation of just what we have here in America. India isn’t bad, it’s different. Our infrastructure and laws are waaaaay different than theirs. The amount of people in that country makes things so much different as well. And you’ll see much more in the extremes on both sides of society there.
The good news is that it’s very easy to get flights in/out and a visa for tourist travel there. You should plan a trip with your GF, sir.
Oh god yes. It makes complaining about rush hour traffic feel quaint. In India you rarely average over 20mph without traffic. Kerala was especially bad, I could literally bike from place to place faster than taking a car. Consistently.
Despite them doubling or even tripling up in lanes! :) Being in a car, cab or rickshaw is a white-knuckle experience for most of us from the west.
Armando, if you like veg plates, you should read up on the idea of a thali plate (or thaali). The idea is a single plate with 6 different basic flavors of balance ( sweet, salt, bitter, sour, astringent and spicy.) They are frequently veg, or at least I’ve only ever seen veg. But I saw a heck of a lot of veg thali plates.
With you and your multi-cooking and presentations, it’s right up your alley.
My work cafeteria had veg and non veg thali every day.
Curries were common, usually lamb or chicken.
Also rice. Always rice.
Always.
I have not, though I’ve considered it. The black salt heavy variant I first heard of wouldn’t go over well with my gf, but others very well could. And I’ve got the deep fryer. . .
I’ve never quite done the specific flavor-balancing act (though I suspect it cropped up a little subconsciously), but yeah, this is something I like to do, or try to do, with my bigger Indian presentations. For instance, my typical South Indian routine includes a couple of overlap days where I’ll have dosa, potato bhaji, tomato chutney, coconut chutney, sambhar soup, and paneer saag all at once, and that always makes for an excellent plate of food :-D
Unfortunately, my gf likes almost none of what I just described, hah. That limits the adventurousness a little sometimes–there’s only so much I can eat by myself, even being the fatass that I am. That said, for the next catering type thing I do. . .
For what it’s worth, in practice most of the thali plates just seemed like a way to pre-make a plate, and less of the taste balance so to speak. More like a Japanese bento box/plate.
Wow - well you’ve done a great job assimilating! You’ve got to go. You should have this as a goal to visit the entire country. Alas, I’ve been relegated to Bangalore and did a 2 week trip around the golden triangle, but never really north or south. I do enjoy all the differences though. I found Goa to be the most unique.
keep it up, I love the pictures & recipes!
I’m getting the hang of this grill thing more and more. We did a meal for a bunch of people last night, and it went pretty well.
With as well as the other stuff went, the star of the meal was asparagus. Asparagus! WTF!
I have not grilled asparagus in forever. But the grocery had these huge asparagus bunches at a really good price. I mean these things looked like the sequoias of asparagus. So we got a few. I figured we’d roast them in the oven the way I normally do, while I worked on the salmon and steaks and corn on the grill. But @fire suggested we grill them.
She prepped them, and put a little olive oil and salt on them. Then I put them out on the grill. They took up the whole grill, but I turned them and turned them until they got a little color, then I put them in a pan with foil on top to let them steam a bit. They held, because they were huge. And then she put them back in the oven after we turned it off from cooking tater tots (yes…tater tots…because grill master was lagging behind and guests needed to be fed something) just to warm them.
And everybody loved them. “Yeah, the salmon is perfectly cooked.” “The steak is just right.”
“BUT THIS ASPARAGUS!”
Asparagus. Honestly.
-xtien
Grilled asparagus is one of the purest wonders in all this world. Well done!
I’ve always hated asparagus, until a few weeks ago when my wife and I had one of the most awesome meals of our lives…in a bowling alley in Honolulu. the prep was very similar to what @ChristienMurawski described, with olive oil, salt and pepper. But the best part was the bit of char that gave it an awesome flavor. Been experimenting with making at home since we got back. Had some tonight as a matter of fact.
Asparagus is the star of Italian cooking. I’m not joking. You did well, it does not take much to make it shine. And though, “baby asparagus,” is the cool trend, big old beefy asparagus is so, damned, good. The inside gets super tender.
Hey, speaking of, a similar treatment and just as tasty is grilled artichokes. It’s a shame they take a bit of grooming (very slight boiling) beforhand, because they too take smoke flavor well and taste EXCELLENT off the grill.
Love grilled asparagus. It’s even better with some acid, just a touch of lemon or sherry vinegar.