Vada Pav (Indian Slider)

For vada:

Heat about a tablespoon of oil in a pan. Add mustard seeds to it. Once the mustard seeds start to pop, add ginger paste, mix with oil and then add 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper, salt, turmeric and potatoes. Mix everything well together and mash the potatoes well, not leaving any big pieces. Set aside and let it cool a little.

Now divide the potato filling into equal sizes and make balls out of it (this makes around 10- 12 balls).

In a mixing bowl, mix chickpea flour, 1 teaspoon salt and the remaining ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper. Add water and whisk well so that there are no lumps. Make a batter off of it. Batter should be of consistency similar to that of pancake batter.

Heat oil in a pan to fry the potato balls. Drop potato balls first in the batter, coating them with the batter, and then drop them in the oil, frying them. Once fried, take the balls out and drain excess oil in a paper towel.

To serve, split the dinner roll down the middle. Place a vada in between and eat it just like that. You can also make it spicier by adding green cilantro chutney or dry coconut and garlic chutney (recipe follows) or some deep fried Thai chili with sea salt.

For the dry chutney:

Heat a pan, add garlic and also grated coconut. Over medium low heat, cook while constantly stirring until the coconut is dry roasted and light golden.

Grind all the ingredients together. Don’t add any water, this chutney is supposed to be dry.