BIT OF BOMBAY, LOT OF SAN FRANCISCO

Imagine a khada pao bhaji with karela (bitter melon). No softroll, instead toasted sourdough. Fried peanuts added to the vegetable curry for textural excitement. An inclusion of coconut milk. Cast iron skillet, well seasoned, in lieu of a tava. No potato. No jeera, lavang, or amchur. Also, non-vegetarian, because the sauce had a little pork mince.
Plenty spicy, because the cook likes spice.

Well, sort of a San Franciscan pao bhaji, because the cook has never even been anywhere near the real article. Pao meaning bread, bhaji meaning vegetable, which in the real thing is cooked mushy, like saag or dal. Lumpy sarson ka saag is a frequent meal, whereas palak ka saag is rare at "Villa Back of Hill". And dal is so rare here as to be non-existent.

Toasted Sourdough, often.


So, it was a pao bhaji purely on linguistic grounds, bearing absolutely NO resemblance to the real McCoy.



Pao bhaji masala usually has twice as much cumin (jeera) as coriander seed (sabut dhania), the same amount of fennel seed (sonf) as coriander, plus minor and predictable amounts of dry ginger (sonth), dry chilies (lal mirch), turmeric (haldi), black cardamom (bari elaichi), black peppercorn (kala mirch), as well as the usual aromatics: mace (javatri), cinnamon (dal chini), clove (lavang), nutmeg (jaiphal), along with black salt (kala namak) and dried mango powder (amchur). The amount of dried chili (lal mirch) is variable, depending on the chilies and your tastebuds.

The vegetables you will find in the sauce made with the spices above plus garlic ginger onion and tomato are usually cauliflower, potatoes, carrots, peas, and haricots. Plus fresh red chilies for colour.
Sometimes paneer is added.

The only other thing you need is a soft breadroll and butter.

Chopped onion, lemon wedge, optional.

Hot tea NOT optional.


So yeah, my version did not resemble the Bombay version.
My type of bhaji, my kind of pao, my masala.
A late easy dinner.



Please note: spellcheck here was useless.
Absolutely, utterly, and totally.



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