Whole Wheat Pav (Indian bread rolls)

I can very well relate pav to the city I grew up in. Pav is an accompaniment for lot of street food or fast food in Mumbai. Pav bhaji and vada pav are the two most popular street foods in Mumbai. My husband is a vada pav lover and can rattle the places where you get best vada pavs. While the vada or the bhaji makes or breaks the dishes, they are incomplete without the humble pav.

Pavs are made of all purpose flour or maida as it is called in India. Now that I have to get health into picture in most of my dishes, I tried out whole wheat pav. I did mix in all purpose flour too to get a soft texture. Here goes my recipe for the pav-

Ingredients:

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 packet dry active yeast
• 2 cups warm water
• 1-1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• 2 tbsp butter melted
• melted butter for brushing pav

Directions:

• In a small bowl take warm water, add sugar to it and mix well so that the sugar dissolves completely.
• Add yeast to the surface of this warm water and let it stand for around 15 minutes.
• The water will be frothy on the top.

• In a separate large bowl, mix together whole wheat, all purpose flour and salt with a dry whisk.
• Add the yeast water to the dry mix and start kneading into a soft pliable dough.
• Add melted butter and knead further.
• Keep this dough in a well greased large bowl loosely covered with cling wrap.
• Keep the bowl near a warm place and let it sit for around 1 hour.
• The dough will double in size.
• Divide the dough into lemon sized balls and roll the balls using your palm till they become smooth.
• Place the balls on a sheet covered with greased aluminium foil, close to each other. 
• Let them sit for around half an hour, loosely covered with cling wrap.
• The balls will have grown in size again.

• Put the sheet in a preheated oven (375 degrees)
• Let it bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and quickly brush it with melted butter all over the top surface.
• Bake it for another 5 minutes.
• Your hot pav is ready, let it sit for 2 minutes and enjoy it warm with bhaji, misal or piping hot vadas.

Pav with misal