Vada pav, alternatively spelt wada pao, is a vegetarian fast food dish native to the state of Maharashtra. The dish consists of a deep fried potato dumpling placed inside a bread bun sliced almost in half through the middle. It is generally accompanied with one or more chutneys and a green chili pepper.
How To Make Vada Pav ?
Ingredients
- 6-8 Garlic cloves
- 4-5 Green Chillies
- 3-4 Potatoes, Boiled, Mashed
- ¼ Cup Oil
- 1 tbsp Mustard Seeds
- ¼ Tsp Asafoetida
- 2 Sprig Curry Leaves
- ½ Tsp Turmeric Powder
- Salt To Taste
- 2 Tbsp Coriander Leaves, Chopped
For Batter
- 1 Cup Gram Flour
- ½ Tsp Turmeric Powder
- ¼ Tsp Red Chilli Powder
- Salt To Taste
For Chilli Fry
- 5-6 Green Chillies,Slit
- Oil For Fry
For Vada Pav Chutney
- 2 Tbsp Oil
- ½ Cup Peanut
- 4-5 Garlic cloves
- ½ Cup Fried Besan Batter crumbs
- 2 Tbsp Red Chilli Powder
- Salt To Taste
- Oil For Fry
Process
- Heat a pan, add oil, mustard seeds, asafoetida, curry leaves, garlic green chilli crushed, turmeric powder, potatoes and mix well.
- Now add salt, coriander leaves and mix it well. Keep it aside to cool.
For batter
- In a mixing bowl, add gram flour, turmeric powder, red chilli powder, salt to taste and required water as per the consistency and mix well.
For vada pav
- Heat oil and green chilli , garlic cloves and fry them well.
- Heat a pan, add oil, peanut, garlic cloves, fried besan batter crumbs, red chilli powder, salt to taste mix well and transfer it to a grinder and coarsely grind it.
- Now make a medium size ball of potato mixture and deep into the besan batter and fry them till golden brown.
- Serve with fried chilli and peanut chutney.
Some Type Of Vada Pav
Jain Vada Pav
Found in Ladoo Samrat in Parel, Lakshman’s Om vada pav in Ghatkopar, Jugadi Adda in Dadar, The vada pav Cafe in Nerul and various other spots around Mumbai. Jain vada pav is a saviour for all the Jains who want to eagerly taste the lip-smacking snack, but cannot due to their religious sensibilities. The difference between a Jain vada pav and regular vada pav is its filling. In Jain vada pav, the potatoes are replaced with bananas. Now all our Jain friends can have vada pav without having to eat potatoes. It gives us the same essence and is as yummy as the original one.
Cheese Burst Vada Pav
This one is for all the cheese lovers in the town. Found in Parleshwar wada pao Samrat in Vile parle and hungry JD’s in Borivali, cheese burst vada pav is heaven in your plate. What makes it different from the original one is again it’s filling. It has a much more modern twist to it. It is filled with potatoes, beans, spicy chillies, tomatoes, mayo, and a good deal of cheese. A bite of this heavenly food is all you need to cheer up your mood.
Chicken Vada Pav
You can find these in any ‘Nothing but chicken’ outlets, HBO café in the fort, and the famous Mahim Khau Gali. Chicken wada pao is one of the greatest evolution of wada-pao. It is a dream come true for all the chicken enthusiasts. The vada here is stuffed with mashed chicken, onions, chillies, and coriander. Different places add their unique touch to the dish. This is an absolutely delightful dish that will surely satisfy your taste buds.
Masala Vada Pav
Found in the scattered points throughout the city but the best masala wada pao brings us to the prince of suburbs, Mulund. The Kalidas Mandya masala vada pav in Mulund has been serving its customers best masala vada pav for several years. The combination of the masala and the vada pav is insanely beautiful. Try one and you will crave for another without a doubt. This one is truly irresistible and surely worth eating.
Manchurian Vada Pav
Easily available all around Mumbai, Manchurian vada pav is another tasty way of fusing Chinese cuisine and vada pav. The patty is replaced with saucy Manchurian, at some places they also add Chinese sticks to add a crunchy texture in it. This variant is gaining immense popularity due to its amazing flavors and cheap rates. It will provide a spicy punch to your buds but will also please them without fail. It is a must-try for all the Chinese lovers out there.
Paneer Vada Pav
I would not exactly call it a street food because it’s only available in fancy cafes as it is still new. So it will require a few more years to reach the streets. Paneer gives a smoother taste to vada pav. The softness of the paneer works excellently with the buttered pav. And with all the sauce and chutneys combined makes it completely appetizing. It will give you a mild essence of a burger but still manage to hold on to its desi roots.
Why does everyone like Vada Pav in Mumbai?
Some cities have an inseparable relationship with food, a love affair so extraordinary that the cities become synonymous with its food. After all, what is Lucknow without tundey kebab, Hyderabad without biryani, Amritsar without kulchas, and Delhi without dahi bhalla. And when it comes to Mumbai, no Mumbaikar can resist a good old, spicy vada pav.
the humble vada pao: these deep-fried fiery balls of chickpea-battered mashed potatoes, laid inside a chutney smothered pav are so delectable that they compel the perpetually in-a-hurry mumbaikars to pause and grab one. for a city known for its fast paced life, is it any surprise that mumbai’s favorite snack is a grab-and-go dish?
according to popular urban legend, vada pao was created by ashok vaidya, a snack vendor who sold batata (potato) vadas and poha right outside the chaotic dadar station. in the early 1970s, vaidya came up with the innovative idea of selling vada pav as an on-the-go snack after a customer in a rush asked him to stuff a vada inside a pav. his mouth-watering snack was an instant hit. what started out as sustenance food has now become an irresistible classic, a street food icon. vada pao is a rare indian street food that boasts its very own world vada pao day on the 23th august.
Outsiders who haven’t tried a vada pao often don’t quite understand the alleged charms of this seemingly ordinary snack. But is it ordinary? Vada pav is perhaps the most quintessentially Mumbai food. Just like the city, it is inherently cosmopolitan, a medley of cultures. Its core, the vada, is a Maharashtrian delicacy, enveloped in a soft pillowy pav, a gift from the Portuguese, and it is laced with zingy garlic, coriander, and tamarind chutneys that are found all across the country.
Often touted as the poor man’s snack, vada pao is much more than just cheap street food. In a city known for its glaring income inequalities, the humble vada pao is the unifier of Mumbai. From roadside vendors to corporate honchos, everyone in Mumbai surrenders to the delights of the ubiquitous vada pav. Such is the love for Vada Pao, that some vendors have become popular thanks to the famous Mumbaikars who frequent them. Story goes that Mumbai’s tiger, Balasaheb Thackeray, was so fond of Vaidya’s vada pao that he ensured that Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials did not hassle Vaidya. India’s favorite Mumbaikar, Sachin Tendulkar, can’t resist the vada pao served at Shivaji Park Gymkhana and claims it as his guilty pleasure. So much so that Vinod Kambli gifted him with 35 vada pavs when the Master Blaster broke Sunil Gavaskar’s 34-century Test Record.
in mumbai, love blossoms in monsoons. as the first splash of rain cools down the city, the mumbaikar craves a bite of his true love – vada pao. only a mumbaikar can understand the sheer joy and romance of watching the rain pour down while standing on the footpath and digging into a piping hot vada pav. over the past few years, mumbai’s beloved snack has gone fancy with restaurants dishing out deconstructed vada pavs and desi potato sliders. but for a mumbaikar, vada pav will always belong in a roadside thela (stall) outside railway stations and in khau gallis (street food).
What is the history of the Mumbai Snack Vada Pav?
Vada-Pao is the brainchild of Ashok Vaidya whose foo stall was stationed just outside Dadar station in Mumbai . It was his idea to create this snack in 1966 by sliding fried vada made of spicy mashed potatoes inside chutney smeared pavs. It’s an Indian counterpart of Sandwich, Sub and Burgers if you consider. Invented as a quick, inexpensive snack item for the fast moving textile mill working labour crowd of Mumbai who could eat something filling on the go, which could be easy on their pocket too and something which could cater to the vegeterian community. Also which could be convenient and easy to make on an outside stall. Today VadaPao has become a characteristic feature of Mumbai.
The above history details are about Vada-Pao as a combined snack of Vada+Chutney+Pav made into a compact item which can be eaten on the go. But the actual history goes back beyond 1966 if you consider two main aspects of this sandwich differently- PAV & VADA. Now these two food items had been consumed differently on their own since decades and centuries prior to the first VadaPav creation in 1966.
Pav or dinner rolls was popularised by Portuguese during their rule in Goa where they introduced various Portuguese recipes from their cuisine. “Pav” is derived from Portuguese word pão, which means bread. This recipe later on travelled via Goan community to British influenced Mumbai where it was a hit amongst local crowd. It became even more popular with the stint of Irani-Parsi cafes lining the city. All in all, the fluffy, yeasty dough baked to pillowy goodness was a hit with Mumbai crowd. That’s PAV for you.
Now, Vada or specifically Batata Vada, which is spiced mashed potato sphere coated in seasoned chickpea flour/besan batter and deep fried like fritters. It has been a long standing Maharashtrian, Gujarati and South Indian (Bonda) cuisine staple since before 1960s which is eaten with coriander green chutney and/or garlic-groundnut red chutney and accompanied famously by fried green chillies. Fritters/Pakodas of different varieties are prevalent in many indian cuisines like lentil fritters (bonda, medu vada, moong etc), kanda bhajji, Mirchi Bhaji, sliced potato pakoda, gol bhajji, plain besan pakoras etc. Batata Vada comes from the same ideology as these recipes of fried goodness. That is about the yummy vada for you.
So the 1966 invention of VadaPao is technically a combination of 2 differently existing popular dishes to create one legendary fastfood type snack which would put itself and the city of its origin, Mumbai on the world food map. The thriving and ever crowded city of dreams, the financial capital of nation admires VadaPav, be it the rich or the poor, children or the elderly, it’s hard to not fall in love with Vada-Pav.
