The humble vada pav is a global icon these days. The classic Mumbai street food consisting of a potato patty, battered in gram flour and deep fried before being stuffed into a soft pav along with dry garlic chutney is a staple of the restless city that never sleeps. In an online poll by the global food ranking platform Taste Atlas, Vada Pav was even named the 13th-best sandwich in the world, confirming what all Mumbaikars already knew. Vada Pav is life.
Recently, food critic, actor and author Kunal Vijayakar took to the streets of Mumbai to find out why the city has a love affair with street food. Everyone has their own opinion of what makes a vada pav good – and it is that diversity that keeps people coming back. One shop owner even declared that the secret ingredient in the perfect vada pav is love.
But where did it all begin? To know how Vada Pav became so ingrained in the food culture of Mumbai, you need to travel back in time to the 1960s. The vada pav’s rise to culinary stardom began in the 1960s at Ashok Vada Pav in Prabhadevi, where Ashok Vaidya pioneered this street food innovation. His venture was partly inspired by Balasaheb Thackeray’s vision of fostering Maharashtrian entrepreneurship, which drew inspiration from the success of South Indian Udipi restaurants.
Seeking to capitalise on the daily flood of textile mill workers heading to Parel and Worli, Vaidya strategically positioned his stall near Dadar station. While initially offering traditional items like vadas and poha alongside a neighbouring omelette pav vendor, Vaidya’s moment of culinary inspiration came when he decided to combine a spiced potato vada with pav bread and chutney. This simple yet ingenious combination immediately captured local appetites.
The vada pav proved perfect for Mumbai’s industrial workforce – it was portable, and filling, and provided the energy needed for long hours of physical labor. Ironically, when the textile industry faced upheaval in the 1970s and 1980s, many laid-off mill workers found a new livelihood by opening their own vada pav stalls, inadvertently helping spread this street food favourite throughout the city.
Today, vada pav is an irreplaceable part of the Mumbai food ecosystem and one of the most popular Indian snacks around the globe drawing fans across continents.
Mumbai Style Vada Pav Recipe
Ingredients
For the Potato Vada
- 2 medium potatoes, boiled and mashed
- 1-2 green chillies
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 inch ginger piece
- 2 tsp oil
- 1/4 tsp black mustard seeds
- A few curry leaves
- 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
- A pinch asafoetida (hing)
- Salt, to taste
For the Vada Coating
- 1 cup gram flour (besan)
- 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
- 1/4 tsp red chilli powder, or to taste
- A pinch baking soda
- Salt, to taste
- Additional Ingredients
- Oil, for deep frying
- 2-3 green chillies, fried (optional)
- 6 pav buns or burger buns
- Green chutney
- Dry garlic chutney
Instructions
- Boil or steam the potatoes until tender. Once cooled, mash thoroughly.
- Grind green chillies, garlic, and ginger to a coarse paste.
- Heat 2 tsp oil in a pan, add mustard seeds and curry leaves. Once seeds splutter, add the chilli-garlic-ginger paste and sauté for 30 seconds.
- Add mashed potatoes, turmeric, asafoetida, and salt. Mix well, ensuring a thick consistency.
- In a bowl, combine gram flour, turmeric powder, red chilli powder, baking soda, and salt.
- Gradually add water to make a thick paste.
- Divide the potato mixture into 6 equal balls, dip each into the besan coating, and deep-fry in hot oil until golden.
- Drain on kitchen paper. Optionally, fry whole green chillies in the same oil.
- Slice each pav bun and spread green chutney on one side.
- Place a potato vada in the bun, sprinkle dry garlic chutney, and top with fried green chillies.
- Serve hot with extra green chutney or ketchup if desired.
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