Pav Bhaji is a common street food in Mumbai and one of my favorite Indian dishes. It's the first type of Indian food I made for my husband and he loves it too. It's a spiced vegetable mash served with buttery, pillowy bread called "Pav." The closest bread I've found here is hamburger buns, though it's not the same.
The thing is... it's not generally a healthy option if you eat it out at a restaurant. It tends to have a ton of butter. So I've tinkered with some recipes to find one of my own that's relatively healthy.
The following makes 4 servings.
1 small head of cauliflower
1 medium potato
1 tablespoon of oil
1 Bell Pepper, diced
1 clove of garlic
1 teaspoon of grated ginger
1/4 teaspoon of turmeric
1 can of diced tomatoes
1/3 cup of frozen peas
2 teaspoons of pav bhaji masala (specialty spice mix that can be found at Indian grocery stores but can be replaced with equal amounts of coriander and cumin powders and chile powder to taste)
Salt and additional chile powder or hot sauce to taste
Hamburger buns to serve
Optional Garnishes - diced onions, cilantro, and lemon slices
Boil the cauliflower and potato and then set aside. In the same pan, heat the oil. Once hot, add in the bell pepper, garlic and ginger to saute for a couple minutes. Add turmeric and saute for a couple seconds more. Add in the tomato, peas, cooked cauliflower and potato as well as the pav bhaji masala (or replacement spices). Use a potato masher to mash the vegetables together a bit (I like mine to stay a little chunky) and then let simmer for around 20 minutes. Add in salt and additional chile powder or hot sauce to taste.
Serve with a toasted hamburger bun, chopped onions, cilantro and/or lemon slices. The vegetable mixture would traditionally be topped with butter but I skip that when trying to be healthy :)
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