You know how much we enjoy Mumbai street food, and I am sure wada pav is everyone's favorite. Last week, it was pouring heavily in Mumbai, and we wanted to celebrate rains away from home. :) Snehanshu wanted to enjoy wada pav with homemade pav bread and fresh dry garlic chutney. I love wada pav, but just wanted to stay away from deep fried food. I thought of trying to bake few for me instead of deep frying. Medu wada, chakli, wada pav...all my favorite deep fried food in baked version to relish it guilt free :)
For Dry Garlic Chutney
Heat
1 tsp of oil. Fry 8-10 dry red chillies and 2 tbsp. sesame seeds for a
min. Turn off the heat and roast 1 cup dry coconut in the same pan.
Cool. Grind this coconut mixture with 10-12 cloves of garlic, 3-4 tbsp.
chilli powder (for spice and color) and salt.
To 1 cup chickpea flour/besan, add 1/2 cup water and whisk well to form a lump free batter. The batter for baked wada should be thicker than the one we use for fried.
Add salt, red chilli powder and pinch of turmeric.
Slightly flatten potato ball. Drench it well in a chickpea flour batter. Use fork to make it clean an less messy.
Place on a well greased baking tray.
Place all wadas and immediately bake them in a 400F preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes or till you get the desired color.
I didn't mind few cracks on them :)
Believe me, I enjoyed these baked, non greasy, wadas with home made pav and dry garlic chutney.
Fried few wadas too for my husband :)
But after tasting the baked one, he enjoyed those guilt free ones better.
I am in love!! Yes, I am in love with this microorganism that follows all my direction and gives me perfect results every time :) You guessed it right....YEAST! I am feeling so confident using yeast. I feel it is important to know the science of this little fungus, so that you can tame it easily.
We had some boxed gravy and rice from an Indian restaurant we dinned at two days back. And, I was in no mood to cook something new today. (Basically because I was preparing cookies and sweets for an upcoming festival) I just asked my husband to come home for a quick lunch of leftovers and to clean up the refrigerator. His immediate reaction was, "Will you be making some fresh naan to go with the gravy?" I was not at all motivated to answer positively. Anyways, I said yes to cut short the discussion and thinking maybe we would end up eating a sandwich ;) After he left for work, I was sitting and lazing around the house. I don't know what struck me, but I got up from the couch and started prepping for lunch.
Here is my recipe to make 4 Naans:
In a large bowl dissolve 1 tsp rapidrise yeast and 2 tsp. sugar into 3/4 cup warm water.
Add 1 tsp salt and 1 tbsp ghee.
Add 1+1/2 cup Indian maida or all purpose flour. Using a wooden stick or spatula, mix the dough for water and flour to come together. It is okay if your dough is slightly sticky. You could also use your hands, which might make it a bit messy.
Mix well to pick up all the flour from the bowl. Your bowl should look nice and clean.
I did not use my fingers or palm to mix the dough.
Transfer it on a clean surface. dust with flour and knead it. It is okay to use around 1/4 cup flour to knead the dough. It is also okay for the dough to be sticky. Knead it for 4-5 minutes. Keep it in the bowl covered with a moist towel for at least 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes, the dough rises. You might not see it double in size. That is okay.
Knead the dough again for 3-4 minutes. Make a neat ball and divide into 4 equal parts.
Roll into smooth balls. Cover with a moist towel and let it rest for 15-20 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 550F or the highest temperature your oven sets to. It is like creating a tandoor (clay oven) environment for naans to cook in. I also like my pizza stone. If you enjoy making kulchas, naans or tandoori rotis at home, I would suggest investing in a pizza stone. It is easily available in many stores in the baking aisle.
Here is a video of Naan being cooked in a tandoor.
Well risen dough balls. Do not punch or knead them. Roll into naans using a rolling pin or by flattening with your hand.
Press some minced garlic.
Place it in a preheated oven and pizza stone and bake for 5-6 minutes. You always want to keep an eye on these. When the desired color is reached, remove from the oven and brush some ghee or butter. You can bake these on a regular baking tray too.
