Traditional Maharashtrian Batata Vada (street style)

I know this is a common recipe. Many of you may already know this but writing down my exact recipe for those who may not have tried. My friends seem to like it a lot whenever i make it 🙂 I am also giving the recipe for the dry chutney, like the one you get with street wada.

Variation — There is another variation to this wada also popular in various old restaurants in Pune. In that you replace the lemon juice with (tamarind+little jaggery) extract and add onion instead of the tadka. That comes out very nice as well. No tadka, no lemon juice. Instead, add ginger to the paste, finely cut onion and tamarind extract to the mixture, rest of the recipe is same.

Usually served with pav (pav-bhaji pav with coriander and tamarind chutney)

Ingredients:

Filling:
8-10 medium sized potatoes (yukon gold i like to use, white/yellow sometimes are too fluffy don’t come well together)
8-10 cloves of garlic
4-5 green chillies (vary depending on the hotness and your taste)
4-5 tsp lemon juice
1/2 cup fresh cilantro trimmed
salt to taste
oil, mustard seeds, cumin seeds, asofeotida, curry leaves and turmeric powder
Covering:
1 cup besan
1/2  cup water, you may need little more this needs to be adjusted based on consistency
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp red chilli powder
1-2 tsp ajwain
salt to taste
1-2 tsp hoil oil
Frying:
1-2 cups oil in a kadhai for frying

Method:
Boil the potates and mash them. In a grinder make a paste of garlic, green chilles, fresh cilantro, salt and lemon juice. Add the paste to the potato mixture. Make the tadka of mustard seeds, cumin seeds, asofoetida, curry leaves and turmeric powder. Once the splutter, and tadka ready add it to the potatoes mixture. Make round balls of the mixture with hand.
For the covering, mix the besan and water (medium thick, not very lumpy neither too syrupy). Add red chilli powder, turmeric powder, ajwain and hot oil and let it set for at least half an hour.
Heat oil in the kadhai for frying. Once the oil is hot, fry the potato balls after covering them nicely with besan covering. Wadas are ready.

Chutney dry
1 cup dry coconut powder
4-5 cloves of garlic
4-5 tsp red chilli powder (or red-chillies fried in oil)
4-5 tsp of toasted sesame seeds
1/4 cup of groundnuts (optional)
salt to taste

Grind everything together. Enjoy!

By Priya Vaidya

Carrot Soup

Ingredients

4 carrots, medium sized cut in cubes

1 potato, medium sized cut in cubes

2 tsp butter

2 tsp cilantro leaf paste

Salt to taste

6 Black peppercorns, crushed

1/2 tsp sugar

 

METHOD:

Heat 1 tsp butter in a pressure cooker for 30 seconds, add carrots and potato and cook for a minute. Add 3 1/2 cups water and pressure cook until one whistle. Cool, blend and set aside.

Grind the cilantro leaves to a fine paste

Heat 1 tsp butter in a pan, add cilantro leaf paste and saute for 10 seconds. Add the vegetable mixture salt, black pepper and sugar, bring 2 boil, and simmer for 2 minutes. Serve hot.

 

By Madhu Thube