Vada Pav / Potato Vada

This is a very popular street food snack in Mumbai (India). Very tasty and delicious made with boiled potatoes.Vada is a deep fried potato coated with gram flour and pav is bread. I have had vada pav many places in Maharashtra. However, I do make them at home on regular basis. It's a common man's food also known as Indian burger. It goes very well with hot and sweet chutney or garlic chutney and whole green chilli. At my place we have it with tomato sauce too. But, today i am going to show little different version of masala than the authentic one.

Ingredients:

(Potato stuffing)
2 large potatoes
6-7 garlic cloves
7-8 green chillies
1/2 bunch of cilantro / coriander leaves
1/2 teaspoon mustard seed
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
1/2 teaspoon roughly crushed coriander seed
a pinch of asafoetida
few curry leaves
oil for frying
salt

(Batter)
1 cup gram flour
a pinch of asafoetida
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
1/2 teaspoon red chilli powder
1/4 teaspoon corriander powder
salt
water
baking soda (optional)

Method:

• Wash and boil 2 large potatoes in a pressure cooker for 4-5 whistles. Once the pressure settles down remove the lid and check if potatoes are completely cooked. If it's cooked remove and place on a bowl or plate, if not then again whistle until cooked.
• Once potatoes are cool down peel the skin and mash them.
• Add salt and turmeric powder to the mashed potatoes and mix well.
• Then in a mixer jar add washed and cleaned cilantro, garlic cloves, green chillies and grind it to a smooth paste.
• Heat 2 teaspoon of oil in a pan, add mustard seed and let it crackle then add asafoetida and few curry leaves and saute for seconds.
• Add the green paste and stir until the raw smell is gone and then add the roughly crushed coriander seeds.
• Then add the mashed potatoes and combine everything together.
• Take all the mixture in a bowl or plate and let the mixture cool down.
• Meanwhile in a bowl add gram flour, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, coriander powder, pinch of asafoetida and salt mix well.
• Add water little at a time, make a smooth batter it should not be too thick or too watery. It should be in a right consistency to cover the potato mixture.
• Once the potato mixture cools down make a small to medium size balls and flatten these balls a bit.
• In a kadai or pan heat oil for deep frying on medium flame.
• Oil should not be too hot or cold. To check, add a drop of gram flour batter if the batter rise up instantly the oil is too hot, if it settles on the bottom then it not hot enough.
• Then dip the slightly flattened potato balls into the batter and coat it evenly.
• Gently drop these batter coated potato balls into the oil
• Depending on the size of the pan you can add more or less vada's.
• Deep fry this till it's golden.
• Drain them onto the kitchen paper towel.
• Serve this with any kind of bread and chutney.

Pictorial:

                 

                         Mash the boiled potatoes. Add some turmeric powder and salt mix well.

          In a mixer jar add cilantro, garlic and green chillies and grind it to a smooth paste.

Heat a pan add some oil, once it's hot add mustard seeds allow it to crackle then add asafoetida, few curry leaves and green paste.

                 Mix until the raw smell is gone. Then add roughly crushed coriander seeds.

 Then add the mashed potatoes and mix well with the green paste. Once the mixture is cool down make a small to medium size balls and flatten it a bit.

Then in a separate bowl, add gram flour and all the dry spices with salt, mix well and add little water at a time and make a smooth paste so that the potato balls get well coated with the mixture.

              Then dip the potato balls in the batter and coat them well and dip it in the oil.

Fry them evenly from both sides until golden. Drain them on a paper towel. Serve hot with pav (bun) with chutney of your choice.

Notes:

1. Adjust green chillies according to your taste.