When you have made soft fluffy homemade Ladi-pav, it’s compulsory to make vada pav or pav bhaji!
So here is authentic Mumbai special Vada pav recipe by my cousin Jitesh Jain.
Time
Preparation time – 30min
Cooking time – 30
Ingredients
This measurement will give you around 8-9 medium size vada.
1/2 kg Potato
3-4 Green chilli (grind instead of paste)
1-2 pcs Whole garlic (peeled & Grind instead of paste)
8-10 Curry leaves
Turmeric powder, salt as per taste, coriander powder(1/4tsp), black mustard seeds, coriander Leaves
1/2 tsp Udad dal
Besan (Gram Flour) 300gms
Water for making paste
Oil for frying
Procedure
Boil potato and mash it with hands (shouldn’t be completely mash) keep it aside and let it cool
Grind green chilli and garlic together don’t make paste it should be coarsely
Take frying pan and keep on medium flame, put 2 tbsp oil to fry the ingredients
Put mustard seeds, fry it till it turns splutter, put curry leaves and fry for 3-5 seconds. Put chilli and garlic and fry for 10-15 seconds
Put coriander powder, turmeric powder and salt fry for 5-10 seconds and then turn off the gas.
Remove the pan from gas. Now mix the masala with mashed potatoes. Taste a little to confirm the spice and salt
Then mix chopped coriander leaves.and keep it aside
Besan Paste-take a bowl, pour besan into it and add water and salt to it to make a paste as given in video
Now apply some oil in your palm (by applying oil Masala will not stick into your hands) to make patty as shown in image below
Keep Frying Pan on gas and light the gas on high flame. Pour sufficient oil to fry the Vada
After a few minutes pour 1-2 drops of besan to ensure that oil is sufficiently hot to fry the vada. Now take patty and apply the paste and drop into the frying pan
Use frying spoon once the vada comes on top of the pan, turn it so that both sides can fry properly once the vada’s colour turns golden brown
Remove from the pan. Follow the same with all the patties
Enjoy hot and Yummy Homemade Vada pav. Do share your feedback and pictures when make it by adding hastag #forbabynmommy.
After our visit to Statue of Unity we planned to explore Baroda or say Vadodara. It was a leisure day excursion, so basically we want to visit few places but don’t want to cover the full list mentioned on many websites.
We stayed in Eastine Residences. Will share the detailed review in my next blog.
Our day didn’t start early :), we left for sightseeing at around 11 AM.
We didn’t plan much to see, 2 main places that we want to cover were Zoo and Palace. Both had there reasons over any other place and those were we want to show animals to our little one and the Place looks really beautiful in the pics and had a lot of 5* reviews.
We started with Sayaji Baug Zoo, it’s quite big garden with a Zoo, a train and big garden inside. Ticket cost is Rs 20 pp. There is a museum as well in the same campus not sure abut the ticket price as we didn’t visit.
Renovation work was going on when we visited, I think they are building new and bigger cages for the wild animals and might bring more animals as well. I didn’t see any proper parking place outside the Garden.
Whole place is nicely maintained other then few old and small bird cages for small birds, many of bird cages were even empty. There are a lot of different varieties of birds.
The zoo is divided into different sections like one for birds, one for other animals like Rhino, Leopards, monkeys etc. and one for the King of the Jungle.
Our daughter really enjoyed here, you can even take stroller as the area is quite big and kids might create fuss after sometime.
Another attraction here was the train, yes you read it right. There is a toy train which runs inside the park and shows you different parts or the park.
You can take the ride at the start to check what all sections are there or afterwards to relax a bit. We took it afterwards. There is condition of minimum number of passengers then only it will play. The ticket price is Rs 50.
Do not forgot to take your shades and water bottles and if it’s bright sunny day then suns cream.
So, after all the strolling we were hungry and want some good Gujarati food. After searching and reading lot of review we went to Sasumaa Gujarati Thali.
I think it is the most famous place to have Gujarati thali and they do have branches in other cities in Gujarat as well. The thali was big as usual like other thalis with many items.
Taste wise it was good, they did prepared some Jain dishes fresh on request as my mom do not eat onion, garlic and many other things 🙂
This place was walking distance form our hotel, after lunch we went to see the Palace.
Laxmi Vilas Palace is huge palace and hug garden cum golf course. The palace is beautiful from outside as from inside there is not much to see, as the decedents of Maharajah Sayajirao Gaekwad III lives there.
We were really disappointed with this place, we have visited so many palaces much more beautiful then this that to w/o any restrictions.
Garden plus Golf course
They don’t even allow to take pic of palace from outside with a SLR or digital camera, only mobile is allowed outside and inside no pics at all.
Entry after ticket check
This place has so many restrictions and after paying a lot for tickets what you see is just 2-3 rooms and one big empty hall. One room is armory and other has old broken crap of there family.
I really mean crap as it was in worst condition and even for that they want us to remove our shoes outside. The hall has some paintings and some sculptures that’s it.
For all this you need to pay a whopping Rs 225. Before this palace recently we have visited City Palace of Udaipur it’s ticket is also costly i.e. Rs 300 but as compared to this that was huge and a lot to see and much more beautiful then this.
They do give audio guide and it has voice of current owners of the Palace. There are issues with the guide and after sometime we turned it off due to the issues. The person is explaining a lot about his personal life in the palace which makes it slow is not useful.
Due to this it takes more then an hour to complete the visit otherwise as I said there is nothing to see.
Forgot to mention above there is one more restriction i.e. you have to keep your mobile on silent.
I won’t recommend anyone to visit this place, you will find a lot of 5* reviews for this place on Google and TripAdvisor but after visiting this I won’t give it anything more then 1*.
We gave the same review to a family who were thinking to purchase the ticket.
This completed our Baroda’s sightseeing. Stay tuned for next blog which will be about our stay in Baroda.
Being a Vada pav and pav bhaji lover, Ladi Pav is must try for me. During this lock-down when we are avoiding buying from stores, this comes as blessing. So let’s not waste much time and get the recipe, don’t forget to read the tips mentioned as it plays a very important role in recipe.
Ingredients
420 gms All purpose flour
Half tsp – instant yeast
Salt 1 1/2 tsp
Sugar 2 tsp
2 Tbsp Butter
Water+ Milk 300 ml or as per flour absorption
One tbsp Sourdough starter discard(optional)
Milk for brushing
Process
Take two spoon flour and add 5-6 spoon water and mix properly now cook it on slow flame until it forms a paste
keep it aside and let it cool down
Add sugar in luke warm water + milk (70 ml) in a glass bowl or cup and then add yeast and mix gently. (Check temperature of water by putting your pinky finger, if your are able to resist heat for sometime it’s good to go)
Cover it and keep it in warm place for 12-15 minutes to activate the yeast
Check if get good bubbles in yeast water, as shown in picture
If you can’t see bubbles rise then discard and start again
Shift Flour, salt, sourdough discard in a separate bowl and start adding activated yeast slowly, don’t add liquid in one go
Keep mixing the flour with liquid until it combines properly
Dough should be sticky, if it feels dry add more liquid
Kneading
Clean your kitchen counter properly and remove unwanted items
Now dust your kitchen counter with some flour or some butter
Take out dough on kitchen counter and start kneading it
You need to knead in stretch and fold method as shown in video
Keep kneading for at least 10-15 minutes or until dough get easy to handle
Add butter while kneading in parts after it starts coming together
To check when your dough is ready press one finger & it should bounce back slowly, or do the window panel test(Mentioned)
Take a small ball and stretch it in front of window, dough should stretch easily and light can be visible
Now tuck in the dough and keep it in well greased Bowl
Cover it properly with cling film or wet towel.
Keep the bowl in warm place for first rise at-least 45 minutes or until it doubles
It got double in volume after first rise
Take out the dough an punch it out, knead again for few minutes
Shaping
Take a square or rectangular baking pan, lined with parchment paper
Take the punched dough and divide it into 60 gm balls, you will get 9 balls from above measurement
Apply some oil/butter on hand if your dough is sticky, knead each ball a little and start cupping it in tight ball with help of your palm and fingers
Placed the well tucked ball in baking trays with some gap in between
I created balls in little hurry that why 1 less and little bigger in size
Brush with milk (optional)
Keep it for 25-30 minutes minimum covered with cloth for second rise
After second rise
Baking
Pre-heat oven at 180°c
Placed the baking tray on rack and bake it for 20-25 minutes. Or until you get a golden top( if you are not getting golden top after 22 minutes, take out the pan and brush again with milk and bake for few more minutes)
Take our pan and remove pav from it and keep it for cooling on rack. ( It will be hard at this time)
Let it cool completely, once it cool down pav becomes soft.
Milk cake has a very special and important place in my life. It’s connected to beautiful memories from childhood. It is also known as Kalakand.
The first birthday cake I remember from my childhood was milk cake. It was decorated nicely with small small balls which holds candles all around the cake.
It was the sweet that can bring smile to face when I was angry. Remember eating different shades of milk cake to have different flavours.
Lets refresh memories in this lockdown with yummy milk cake
Ingredients
2 Litres Full cream milk
Ghee – 4 tbsp
Sugar- 3/4th Cup (increase if you want more sweet)
Cardamom powder – 1 tsp (optional)
Lemon juice – 2 tbsp or Alum (Fitkari) – 1 to 1.5 Pinch(powdered)
Time
It will take around 2-2.30 hrs, it totally depends on the quantity of milk
Procedure
Take heavy base iron or steel kadai. Heavy because milk will burn due to high heat if the base is thin
Boil milk in kadai and keep stirring continuously without stopping as milk can stick to the base and can burn
Flame should be High to medium (depends on your gas stove and base of the kadai)
When the milk remains little less than half the total quantity, add lemon juice/Alum gradually.
Keep stirring and you will notice milk granules will start forming. Don’t add too much lemon juice otherwise it wont be what we want it to be 🙂
Keep stirring don’t stop till we finally turn off the flame
When it’s around 1/4th of total quantity add sugar
keep stirring and once you feel the water is all gone add ghee gradually, until it start leaving pan
You have to cook till it’s light brown in color and then add cardamom powder to it(cardamom is also optional)
Turn off the flame now and grease any tray with ghee and take out the mixture from kadai in it.
Press it gently to set and make it even all around. Now cover the tray with lid or plate. Take a thick towel and keep this tray wrapped properly inside the towel.
Leave this wrapped for 4-5 hours as the mixture would self cook with its heat and give beautiful brown color.
Now after 4-5 hours take out the tray and cut the milk cake in squares and garnish with dry fruits as per your liking.
Hope everyone is safe and staying at home. As we are lockdown it’s time to enjoy doing what you love the most and was not able to do with busy schedule.
Baking is one of my hobby that works as a stress therapy. Today I have made whole-wheat granola cookies with goodness of honey and dry fruits.
Well this recipe just formed as I was having some left over granola. Why to waste when it’s yummy, healthy and can make a great recipe.
So presenting my recipe from scratch.
Ingredients
Whole wheat flour – 3/4th Cup
Granola left over – 1 Cup
Honey/sugar powder – 3/4th cup (if you prefer more sweet can add 1 cup, and if you want to go more healthy replace sugar by honey)
Dry fruits (almonds, cranberry, raisin & walnut) – 1/2 Cup
Butter/Ghee – 1/2 cup (as per availability in lock-down)
Vanilla essence – 1/2 Tsp
Pinch of salt if you are taking unsalted butter
Procedure
Add sugar and butter in bowl whisk well till light and fluffy. Add vanilla essence and mix well.
Shift whole wheat flour, Granola and salt in another bowl. Add dry ingredients raisins and almonds to whisked butter and sugar and mix gently.
Bind together to form a dough. If the mix is dry add 1 or 2 tbsp milk and make dough (if you are replacing sugar with honey skip milk part)
Make small balls from dough depending on size of cookie you want to make and press slightly to flatten.
Preheat microwave/oven at 180°C. Arrange the balls on parchment paper or grease the tray. Bake for 12-15 minutes until edges turn slight brown
Be careful cookies would be soft at this time carefully take out and let them cool on wire rack.
Once cooled they will turn crispy, store in airtight container and enjoy munching ?
