Category: Gujarat

The Gujarati cuisine is mainly vegetarian but very versatile. It is famous for it’s sweetish dals and farsan – snacks that are a common component of a Gujarati thali. Here you get an overview and recipes of the Gujarati cuisine.

I simply love Gujarati food, I can’t think of a more flavourful and versatile vegetarian cusine. Unfortunately it is very underrepresented in restaurants outside of India, even though Gujarat is a rather large state with very good food. If you happen to have the chance going to a Gujarati restaurent outside India, try it out and leave a comment!

Characteristics of Gujarati cooking

Typical Gujarati food is sweet, salty and spicy at the same time and primarily vegetarian. It varies widely in heat, not all the food has a dominant spicy element to it. Fish does exist at the coast, but is playing a minor role in the Gujarati cuisine. You won’t typically find that in a Gujarati restaurant.

Gujarati Thali

Thalis are set meals, consisting of different components. You get them all over India with different elements, typically categorised as vegetarian, non-veg or fish.

A veg Gujarati Thali will have a dal or a kadhi, a pulse or bean dish, a shaak (vegetable), rice, roti, a farsaan (snack), a pickle and a sweet.

Examples for typical snacks are

• Dhokla: A soft, fluffy snack made from steamed chickpea flour with baking powder and spices, rather mild and sweet.
• Pathra: Snack wrapped in Colacasia leaves made from chickpea flour and spices. Is first rolled and steamed, then the sliced pathras are fried.
• Samosa: Gujarat samosas are vegetarian stuffed, savory fried dumplings. They are flatter and have a thinner dough than Punjabi samosas. The filling is also slightly different, although most also contain potatoes and peas.

Examples of typical desserts are

• Jalebi: Deep-fried thin dough curls made of slightly fermented dough, which are then soaked in sugar syrup.
  

  

• Shrikhand: Sweetened yogurt with saffron and green cardamom.

Gujarati thalis differ in summer and winter. In summer, there is usually amras (mango puree) served with it and less garam masala is used in the dishes. In winter, rotlas, flat breads made from pearl barley flour, are often served with it. In winter, bhakris, thicker, crumbly flatbreads made from wholemeal flour, are then also commonly served.

Recipes