Vada Pav

To a Puneite living abroad, especially the US, the worst part of the journey home isn’t the eighteen-plus hour plane ride home, it’s the miserable three and a half hour car ride to Pune after landing in Bombay. It goes something like this. After careful calculation of vacation days the momentous decision to visit home is reached a couple of months before the actual journey and thus begins the saga of finding the perfect (cheapest) ticket. Browsing through many sites, with multiple windows open at one time, carefully considering the layovers, and chat consultations with fellow desis, all done in office time, a purchase is made. No sooner does the itinerary hit the inbox, it is forwarded to at least 4 family members and 8 friends. And if you’re lucky, they won’t all show up to pick you up at the airport in one car. The day of the journey arrives and the sojourner leaves for the airport with maximum allowable baggage and a list of explanations for Indian customs about how it is all within the allowance.

After an 18-hour journey and up to 6 award-winning airline meals (I don’t know of a single airline that doesn’t claim that their food isn’t award-winning) the jumbo jet touches the motherland. After the gastro-intestinal assault, it’s time for olfactory annihilation, and the Mumbai air is only happy to oblige. Thus arrives the prodigal son (or daughter) to the motherland weary, chaffed and slightly constipated. No matter what fly-by-night operator you use, a trip originating from the US somehow ends up reaching Bombay around midnight. Once out of the plane your first greeting is the indifference of the immigration officer at CST, the delay in anything appearing on the luggage conveyor and the harassment by customs. These are all just mere hurdles between you and the warm hug that you’ll receive from your posse waiting for you outside the airport if you know where the exit is. Life would be so much simpler if CST airport didn’t change so damn much every 12 months. The last leg of the journey to Punyanagri thus starts.

This time around, I had the pleasure of taking the Bombay-Pune midnight express twice as my wife and I arrived in Pune a week apart and I had to go back to bring her to Pune. Her flight arrived at 2:30 a.m. and after one Akshay Kumar brought the airport to a standstill for an hour, she emerged out of the door at around 4:00 a.m. We started for Pune with one of my dearest friends. Over the bridges and through poorly designed signage, unnecessary construction and everything Bombay can throw at you we finally made it to the express highway. This journey is truly awful, but there are some bright spots along the way like the Khandala Ghat and the new truck stops that are for some reason called malls. We stopped at one such mall, the one before Khandala Ghat starts. I would say that I can’t remember the name, but the truth is that at 5:45 a.m., I really didn’t care what the name of that place was. It wasn’t as busy as it would be during the day, but at a quarter to six, what place really is. My firang wife pointed to the glass case filled with the “orange potato dumplings”. And against my better judgment, we all had the orange potato dumplings. Two sandwiched in buns with green chilies and one without. My wife didn’t think deep-fried potato sandwiched in white bread was a healthy option. That was until she saw the culinary delight known as the bread pakora. It wasn’t the greatest Vada-Pav I have had, but it was definitely the first one I had just before sunrise, and after a night of no sleep and 250 km, it tasted pretty darn good with a cup of chai in a flimsy plastic cup.

Ingredients

For stuffing

  • 4 Potatoes boiled and peeled
  • 1 Onion finely chopped (optional)
  • 6 Chillis finely chopped
  • 6 Garlic cloves crushed
  • 2 tbsp Ginger grated or paste
  • 1 Lemon juiced
  • 1/2 cup Cilantro / Coriander finely chopped
  • 1 tsp salt

For batter

  • 2 cups Besan (Chickpea flour)
  • 1 tsp Chili powder
  • 1 tsp Turmeric
  • 1/2 tsp Cumin Powder
  • 1/4 tsp Baking soda
  • 1 tsp Salt

Method

  • In a pan mash potatoes, onion, chilis, garlic, ginger, lemon, coriander and salt into a solid mixture making sure that the potatoes don't have any large lumps.
  • Make small balls the size of a golf ball
  • Place aside
  • Mix besan, chilli powder, turmeric, cumin, baking soda and salt in a bowl
  • Add water and mix till it turns into a thick batter
  • Heat oil in a wok
  • Dip the potato balls in the batter and deep fry till golden
  • Take a Pav and tear it open keeping them together at one edge
  • Place one hot Vada in the Pav and serve with deep fried green chilies on the side

Comments

Anonymous said…
Dear APMG you should just say Mumbai...you might know that already ...
Adhi Potoba said…
Mumbai when I speak in Marathi, Bambai when I speak Hindi and Bombay when I speak in English. Nothing the moronic Thackeray clan does can change that.
suvi said…
To me, if it is vada pav, it has to be the bombay pune train journey! Blogged about it sometime back. BTW, just back from the desh and been thru the road journey to pune from bombay airport and back - and I hear you!!
suvi said…
oh and btw, ditto to your response on mumbai, bambai and bombay :)
rocbrownie said…
Joshi Vadewale zindabad! Excellent account of the dreaded middle of the night Bombay-Pune expressway journey. What makes it even worse is the inevitable traffic bottleneck in the hills of Lonavala with your cabbie skillfully maneuvering through the innumerable overloaded Horn OK Please Ashok Leyland trucks struggling to make it up the hill.
Anonymous said…
Hi, I fell off my seat laughing at 'After an 18-hour journey and up to 6 award-winning airline meals '

Too funny. Excellent choice of words :)
MR said…
my fav street food too good
Joanna said…
My first trip to Mumbai was a 48 hour adventure on the way back from working in Asia.

My hosts got me a pakora pav as the safest and best thing they could think for me to eat. So that was my first meal ever in India

Mumbai is an olfactory assault, but what a city!
Rachel said…
Vada pav..something that I crave for almost every other visit to B'bay!
Khaugiri said…
Nothing like vadapav on this earth:) Missing those lovely vadapav here in Bangalore:(
Looks Yummy. I had Vada pav just once at our friends place. wanted to try it.
? said…
Twas fun reading your post; CST is one of the worst airports to land in...but the vada pav was tasty!:-D
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Anonymous said…
i belive that vada pau place is called ramakants on the way to pune before the hills. i think the citys name is khapoli.
Myriad said…
which pau do you use here? I've tried so many but they don't taste the same.
Anonymous said…
your post was so wonderfully put together.
cheers to your writing!!!
Anonymous said…
sounds and looks delicious. now that you have so much time on your hands i'll be expecting one for lunch. thanks in advance.
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Chowder Singh said…
Loved your post. Funny one.
Unknown said…
Hi. your article fanttastic. thanks in informahie...

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Unknown said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Good to read article on food and looks interesting - keep it up!
Unknown said…

.You have made this perfectly..Will surely give it a try..Thanks a lot for this recipe. it tastes yummy too!
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Apratim Group said…
very well information about weekend homes
Regards
plots in khopoli
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