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Indian kitchen

Pav Bhaji

Mumbai's great buttery mash-up: vegetables cooked down to a spiced sludge and soft rolls griddled in more butter than you would admit to a doctor. Absolutely worth it.

Total time
18 min
Serves
2
Effort
Easy

What you need

Written for 2 — nudge the counter and the numbers follow.

Cooking for
2 people

0 of 10 in the basket.

How you make it

  1. Melt 30g of the butter in a wide pan over medium-high heat and fry the onion and pepper for 4 minutes until softened.

  2. Add the ginger-garlic paste for 30 seconds, then the pav bhaji masala and tomatoes with 1 tsp salt, and cook 4 minutes until pulpy.

  3. Add the potato, peas and carrot with 150ml water and mash everything together in the pan for 5 minutes over medium heat until thick, dark and almost smooth.

  4. Stir in the lemon juice and 10g more butter, then taste for salt and keep the bhaji warm on the lowest heat.

  5. Wipe a hot frying pan with the last of the butter and press the cut sides of the rolls down for 60 to 90 seconds until toasted and glossy.

  6. Serve the bhaji with the buttered pav, extra lemon and raw chopped onion alongside.

Read all that and thought “absolutely not”?

Completely fair. Pav Bhaji is sitting in the Indian kitchen right now, it costs nothing, and it will never arrive.

Order it instead

Spice layered on spice until the room smells incredible.