Sweet potato vada pav with walnut and pistachio spicy chutney

Vada pav is a famous chat/street food in northern part of India and one of my favorites next to pani puri! You get the best vada pavs in Mumbai and I have fond memories of eating them in one of my summer vacations to my aunt’s place in Mumbai as a kid. Since then I have tried them in many places, some of them good and some bad ones.

Vada pav’s are fried potato balls served with dinner rolls/pav along with spicy garlicy dry peanut chutney and some serve green chutney too along with it.

I was discussing recipes with my friend “Mad” (Mad short for Madhumita) who has shared her recipe for rava milk burfi  for my blog. We have been friends since our school days and share very similar interests, primarily on food and cooking.

I was telling her that I have been wanting to try out recipes from different parts of India and thats when she suggested a couple of dishes, Vada pav being one of them.

First I dismissed the idea, as I knew I had to fry the vada/patties, but I suddenly thought, why not make it healthier? After all, it was one of my favorite chats and I wanted to surprise my hungry hubby when he got back from work.

As I thought of ways to make it healthy, I decided to substitute potato with sweet potato and thought of baking the patties instead of deep frying.

I was a little skeptical when I baked them, and just as I suspected, I did not like the baked patties/vada. So I shallow fried them in my non stick paniyaram pan with some oil and it turned out perfect.