Vada Paav/Indian Burger

Vada Paav or Indian Burger - One of my favorite comfort foods found very commonly on the streets of Maharashtra. Everyone who has lived in Maharashtra knows Vada Paav but it is a novelty for the rest of India. I was surprised when my friends from Andhra Pradesh had not heard of Vada Paav.
One of our family friends live in Delhi and when they visited us in Solapur, we fed them Vada Paav and they loved it. Now whenever anyone flies to Delhi from Solapur or Mumbai, they order a few Vada Paavs.
I personally feel that nothing can go wrong with potato preparation. This was made for a friend of mine who is expecting with Twins - a boy and a girl. Nothing better than Vada Paav for an expecting women.

Ingredients: 
Paav/Bread - 8-10 pieces
Dry Coconut Garlic Chutney - 1/2 cup

For Vada's inner filling - 
Potatoes, Boiled and Mashed - 4
Onions, finely chopped - 1
Green Chillies - 3
Ginger Paste - 1 tspn
Hing/Asafoetida - 1/4 tspn
Rai/Mustard seeds - 1/2 tspn
Jeera/Cumin Seeds - 1/2 tspn
Curry leaves - 6-7
Turmeric Powder - 1/2 tspn (levelled)
Cilantro - 4-5 strands


For Outer Coating - 
Besan/Chick Pea flour - 2 cups
Jeera - 1/2 tspn
Baking Soda - 1/8 tspn
Red Chilli Powder - 1/2 tspn
Salt
Water
Oil


Procedure: 

1. Heat 2 tbspn oil in a wok. Add Hing, Rai and Jeera to it and once it starts sputtering, add curry leaves and green chillies. Mix this well then add onions and garlic paste. Cook till the onions are translucent.
2. Now add turmeric powder and then the roughly mashed potatoes and mix well. Add some salt to taste and cook for 2 mins and turn off the heat.
3. Now mix the besan, chilli powder, jeera, salt and soda with some water. Make sure the mixture becomes a thick paste (without lumps) and not a runny paste. If it becomes runny, add some besan and salt to it. Adjust the chilli powder accordingly too.
4. Now heat some oil to fry the vadas. When oil is well heated, add 1 tbspn of hot oil to the besan paste and mix well. 
5. Now make small balls out of the potato mixture and dip in the besan paste and deep fry in the oil on High heat till the Vadas are golden brown in color.
6. Now open some paav and spread some dry coconut garlic chutney and place a vada on it and enjoy it with some fried green chillies.

Variations: 
I had added some mint and meethi chutney to the Vada paav just for my taste buds.
 
Conclusion:

My friend seemed to crave for Vada Paav and I happened to visit her with the same. She was quiet happy and so was I.