Vada Pav Mumbai Style

For the vada filling:

Potatoes                   -2 cups boiled and mashed (Aloo)
Green chillies          -2 (Hari Mirch)
Garlic                      -3/4 (Lehsun)
Mustard seeds          -1 tspoon (Rai)
Asafoetida               -1/4 tspoon (hing)
curry leaves             -6 to 8 (kari patta)
Turmeric powder    -1/2 tspoon (haldi)
Oil                           -1 tblspoon

For the outer covering:

Gram Flour                    - 3/4 cup (Besan)
Turmeric Powder           - 1/4 tspoon (Haldi)
Baking Soda                  - 1/8 tspoon
Oil                                 - 1 tspoon
Salt                                - to taste

Oil for deep frying


Method:

Making the vada filing:

Crush the green chillies, ginger and garlic using a mortar and pestle or you can coarsely chop them in a chopper.
Heat the oil and add the mustard seeds to it.
When they start to crackle, add the Asafetida and curry leaves and sauté for a few seconds.
Add the chili, ginger, garlic mixture and sauté again for a few seconds.
Add the mashed potatoes, turmeric powder and salt, mix very well.
Remove from the flame and keep aside to let it cool.
Divide the mixture into 12 equal portions. Shape into rounds.

For the outer covering and frying:

Combine all the ingredients under "Outer Covering" in a bowl and make a batter using approximately 1/3 cup of water. Keep it  thick mixture not runny.
Dip each round of the vada filling into the batter and allow it to coat the mixture well.
Deep fry in hot oil, till golden brown. Drain on paper towel to absorb excess oil and keep aside.

Assembling the Vada Pav:

Slice each pav into half and spread some tomato garlic chutney inside.
Place one vada in each pav and serve immediately.
Fry some green chilis to go with the Vada Pav.

Ladi Pav

Ingredients:

Plain Flour / Maida           -2 Cups
Milk                                  -1 cup warm
Vegetable Oil                   -2 tblspoon
Dry Active Yeast             -1 tspoon
Sugar                               -1 tspoon
Salt                                  -1/2 tspoon
Water                              -1/2 cup


Method:

Mix Maida, yeast, sugar, salt and oil in a deep mixing bowl, mix it well.









Now add milk little by little not all at once, knead it to dough.

The dough will be very sticky, keep on kneading for 8-10 minutes and the sticky dough will turn into smooth dough. We knead it for 10 minutes just to activate the gluten in it.

Now cover it with cling film and keep it in a warm spot to rest untill double. it can take from 1 to 1-1/2 hours.

Once the dough has risen, punch it down and knead it again.

Now take a baking tray and grease with some butter and dust it with some flour so that your Pav doesn't stick to it.

Now cut the similar size balls or pieces from the dough and roll them to form a small ball.

Keep these dough balls on the baking tray within a distance of 1/2 inch.

Once all the balls are made and placed on the baking tray, cover it again with cling film and keep it in a warm spot to rest for at least 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes the balls will rise double to their size.

Preheat the oven to 180c.
Now put the baking tray on to middle rack of your oven and bake the rolls for 20 minutes or until the top turns golden.
Your Pav Rolls are ready to serve with Bhaji or vada.

Soya, WholeWheat & Olive Bread

Ingredients:

Whole wheat flour/atta              - 2 cups
Soya Bean Flour                       - 1 cup
Water                                        - 1 + 1/4 cups
Instant Dry Yeast                      - 1 tspoon
Yogurt                                       - 2 tblspoon
Salt                                            - 1 tspoon
Olives                                        - 1/2 cup finely chopped black or green
Cane Sugar                                - 1 tblspoon
Oil                                             - 2 tblspoon



Method:

Sieve both the flours with salt. Add the 1 tsp instant dry yeast and just lightly mix.
Now add sugar, oil, yogurt and mix well.
Mix everything gently and then slowly start adding water in intervals to knead it to a smooth, soft dough.
Add more water if required. The dough should be slightly sticky.
Keep the dough in a deep wide bowl, brush it with oil, covered with a cling film or kitchen towel for 1 hour.

After an hour remove the dough from the bowl and then lightly punch & knead the dough again.

Now stretch the dough and sprinkle the finely chopped olives onto it.

Now make a log of the dough and seam the edges under the log.

Put it in a greased bread loaf tin for 40-45 minutes. cover and let it rise again for about 45 min to 1 hour.
Preheat your oven at 220 degrees C.
Once the bread has risen in the loaf pan, place it in the oven and bake for 22-25 minutes or until the bread sounds hollow when tapped.
If the bread begins to brown from the top, then cover with butter paper or aluminium foil.
when the bread is still slightly hot, remove from the loaf pan and keep it on a wired tray to cool.

Slice the bread only once it cools down completely, as sometimes it keeps on cooking with heat inside it.

Gobhi Manchurian with Gravy

Ingredients:

Plain flour/Maida         -2 tblsp
Corn flour                     -2 tblsp + 2 tspoon (For gravy)
Baking Soda            -1 pinch
Cauliflower                   -1 medium size
Onion                            -1 big very finely chopped
Garlic                            -6 cloves pureed
Ginger                           -1 inch pureed
Spring onion                 -4 sprigs
Chilli tomato sauce       -1 tblsp
Soy sauce                      -2 tsp
Black Pepper powder   -1 tsp heaped
Salt                               -to taste
Sugar                            -1/2 tsp
Oil                                -to fry cauliflower florets
Water                           -1/2 cup

Method:

First of all, Clean the cauliflower florets by immersing them in hot water with salt for 10 minutes. This way, they will be parboiled.

Now, Make a batter with corn flour, plain flour and cooking soda, thick enough to coat the florets. Just the way you make coating batter for pakoras.

You can either dip the well drained florets one by one in the batter or just mix all of the batter with the drained florets and deep fry.
Just make sure there is enough batter to coat the florets. Deep fry until crisp and light.Keep aside.

In a heavy bottom wide pan heat 2 tblsp oil and add garlic and ginger puree.
Give it a quick stir and then add finely chopped white part of the spring onion and the chopped red onion and fry till transparent.
Add both soy and tomato chili sauce, salt, sugar, black pepper and mix well.
Add 1/2 cup of water to this mixture.
Now dissolve 2 tspoon corn-flour in 2 tblspoon of water and add it to the pan.
Stir continuously so that cornflour mixture mixes well with everything.
Now let it boil for 2 minutes, keep it boiling untill the gravy starts to thicken
Now add the fried florets and mix well. Give a chance to soak bit of gravy , say for a minute.

Now switch off the flame and take out the Manchurian in a serving dish.
Finally garnish it with chopped green part of the spring onion.
Serve hot immediately as starter or with any Chinese style rice or noodles. I serve them with either steamed rice or garlic noodles.

Butter Croissant

Ingredients:

All Purpose Flour               -4 cups
Milk                                    -1-1/4 cups
Granulated Sugar                -1/4 cup
Unsalted Butter                   -2 Tbspoon of softened at room temperature
Instant Yeast                       -1 Tbspoon
Salt                                      -1-1/2 tspoon

For the butter layer and Brushing:

Unsalted Butter                  -1 cup plus 2 Tbsp of, cold
Milk                                    -1/4 cup


Method:

Take the water into a large bowl. Stir in the yeast and sugar, leave for 5 minutes or until frothy.
Add milk, softened 3 tablespoon butter, salt and mix it well. Now Mix it with the flour.
Mix well and incorporate it with your hands into a shaggy ball. If you have a standing mixer with dough hook, it works perfect.
Tip the the dough out onto a floured clean work surface and knead until you’ve incorporated all the flour (this should only take about 2-4 minutes). shape it like a round disk.
Place the dough into a lightly floured bowl, cover with cling film, and put it in the fridge to rest for 5-6 hour or may be overnight.
Next day I started with the butter, take the butter directly from the fridge and grate onto a piece of cling film or plastic wrap.
spread the butter, and make it into a perfect 7*7 inch square.
Fold up in the cling film and pat together well, make sure it's nicely compact square block.
Refrigerate this butter square for 30 minutes, as while grating and rolling will turn it into room temperature.
Now take out your dough from the fridge. pat it down.
Take out your dough on a lightly floured surface. Roll the dough into roughly 10*10 inch square.
Now take out your butter after 30 minutes and keep the butter block on the dough rectangle.
Now fold and pinch the dough from the sides like you are wrapping a gift and hiding whatever is inside.
four side folds on the butter block and pinch it properly to seal it.
Now roll the dough into 8*24 inch rectangle out of this buttery dough block.
Now fold into 3 folds like a letter. Make sure to brush off the extra flour stick onto the dough (Which we used while rolling).
Place it on the parchment paper lined baking tray and cover with cling film and keep it in the fridge for another 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes, take out the dough from the fridge and roll it out again into 8*24 inch rectangle (same process as you did first time).
Keep the width to 8 inch everytime and you just need to roll it lengthwise into 24 inch.
After rolling brush off the excess flour again. Fold it in 3 folds and brush off the excess flour.
Re-peat this method 2 more times.  and keep chilling it for 30 minutes after each rolling process.
After 4th process leave it into the fridge over-night.
Second day take out the dough from the fridge and it should have risen to almost double in size.
Cut the dough into exact half . Now roll both the dough pieces into 8*44 inch rectangle.
Now cut the exact 6 inch pieces from the dough rectangles. Brush off all the excess flour from the dough pieces.
Now cut out each 6 inch square pieces from the middle as if you are making two triangles. Do this with all the 6 inch squares.

Now start the shaping of Croissants.
Lay each little triangle in front of you, brush off any excess flour from top and bottom, stretch it out from the largest side just a bit to make sure the pointed end is centered.
Now starting at the widest part of the triangle, roll it into a crescent shape pinching the ends together .

Place the croissants on your lined baking trays and place them somewhere warm and allow the croissants to proof for about an hour or so. They will puff up a bit. If you can see the picture the butter layer is visible very well here.

Now preheat your oven to 200c.
Brush the croissants with butter and milk mixture and keep the baking trays in the middle rack for the good all over cooking.

Your Croissants are ready to eat. Enjoy the fruits of your patience and hard work.