Garam, Garam Bataat Vadey!

There is no running away from Indian street food. Especially the kind served in the by-lanes and tea stalls of Bombay and in the zhunka bhaakar kendras thriving in rural Maharashtra.

Ussal, Missal pao, Paav bhaji, Saabudaana vada, Zhunka bhaakar, Gulgula, Bhajia, Samosa, Sheera, Poha, Kachori – these are just a few dishes from the variety of fare available in Maharashtra. Most of these dishes have onions in them, but the traditional way to serve them is with generous amounts of sliced red raw onions, some lime wedges and usually 2-3 types of chutneys (sauces).

Vada pao is one such morsel of delight and quite possibly the king of all Indian street food. It is readily available for as low as Rs. 3 in every tea stall worth its name in Mumbai and Maharashtra.

Bataat vadas my friend Grinal made

Essentially mashed potato stir-fried in oil laced with spices and curry leaves and then rolled into balls and coated in a batter made from chick pea flour and deep-fried, these tea-time treats are served in a pao (bun) with roughly chopped red onions, a sweetish pudina chutney (mint sauce), some chili chutney and a garlic-red chili masala (spice mix). A glass of masala chai is the usual accompaniment to this spicy treat.

Bataat vadas I made for the first time - served with tamarind chutney

I got tired of missing it so intensely out here and ended up making a batch of bataat vadas on two different occasions – and I just couldn’t stop eating! The most recent batch I made was with my friend Kathleen – an Australian who is as daring in her love for Indian street food as she is with her strong beliefs.

This is what you need:

Batter –
Besan atta (chick pea flour) – 1 cup
Salt – 1/2 tsp (taste to decide amount)
Chili powder – 1/2 tsp (only if it is mild)
Rice flour – 1 + 1/2 tbsp (this is optional and added only if you would like your batter coating to be crispy)

Filling –
Potatoes, peeled, diced and boiled – 4 big ones/6 medium-sized ones
Mustard seeds – 1/2 tsp
Turmeric – 1/2 tsp
Ginger paste – 1+1/2 tsp
Green chilies – 2 small ones, finely chopped with seeds
Coriander – 2 tbsps, chopped
Garlic – 3 fat cloves, mashed
Curry leaves – 5-6 leaves
Salt to taste

What you need to do:

If you don’t have a deep-frier, put a small deep saucepan on the stove, add cooking oil (enough to deep-fry golf ball sized patties) and keep it on medium heat.

In a different saucepan, add some oil and once it’s heated add the mustard seeds, curry leaves, chopped chilies, mashed garlic and ginger paste. Lower the heat to medium-low and stir everything quickly and don’t let it stick to the bottom of the pan.

Add the turmeric and then the boiled potatoes. Sauté everything to ensure the potatoes are coated on all sides with the sputtering spices. Lightly mash them in the pan as you sauté.

Take the saucepan off the stove after a few minutes and allow this mixture to cool. Keep stirring/mashing with the ladle to ensure the steam escapes enough for you to dip your hand in it.

Make the batter once the filling is ready. Mix the flours and chili powder in a bowl with your hand and add some water to it. The batter should not be runny or too thick. The ideal consistency should be like that of thick syrup – more viscous than watery.

Vishesh tippani :- After using the mortar-pestle to crush the garlic, instead of washing it off, I add some water to use any garlic bits clinging on to the inside surface. This water along with the slight garlic taste, goes into the batter for the vadas. Some people even add some chopped coriander and cumin seeds to make the batter more tasty. We added coriander when we prepared it, but you can miss out on these and it would still taste delicious.

Test the oil, add a drop of the batter to it. It should sink to the bottom and immediately rise without changing colour. If it stays sunk, the oil needs to heat more. If the drop changes colour after rising, it’s too hot. Adjust the heat and oil temperature before you begin frying, else the vadas will either turn black or will take a long time to cook. You can increase the flame to medium-high to heat the oil quicker.

Bataat vadas Kathleen and I made

Let the stove temperature stay on medium-high for the frying. Dip your hands into the filling mixture and make golf-ball sized patties. make as many as you can while the oil reaches the desired temperature. All you have to do once the oil’s ready is to dip the balls into the batter, coating them on all sides and gently drop them into the hot oil. Depending on the mouth of your saucepan, you can drop anything from 2 to 4 at a time.

Use tongs to keep rolling them in the oil and once they are golden brown, lift them and keep them aside on paper towels to absorb any excess oil.

We made about 15-odd bataat vadas and still had some batter remaining (I have adjusted it here), so we sliced up some onions, added a pinch of cumin seeds and 1 clove of mashed garlic, 1/2 tsp ginger paste and a tiny pinch of turmeric to use as a batter for kaanda bhajias (deep-fried onion fritters).

Kaanda Bhajiya - deep-fried onion fritters

It resulted in quite the street food feast at Kathleen’s house by then! We gobbled them up with tomato sauce as we were quite knackered to prepare any at home. It takes a fair while to prepare these and they are best had piping hot, but once your tongue rolls around that old familiar taste of bataat vada, it’s all worth it.

Note: The title just means hot, hot potato patties in my people’s dialect – Valkar Marathi