Gathia: Lamba, fafda or Pata Gathia (ganthia)

Gathia (often called ganthia), especially lamba (meaning long) or pata (meaning chunky) gathia and Jelebi are a traditional Sunday breakfast for a lot of Indians.  The salty gathia and syrupy sweet jalebis make a perfect combination. The Gujarati's love this breakfast the most!  The queues outside the Indian takeaways on a Sunday morning in the UK, prove how popular this breakfast is.  Most the dishes cost a lot as the chefs tend to create a a mystery about these two dishes and talk about how difficult it is to make them..  Today, I am posting the recipe for Gathia and the Jalebi recipe will follow soon. I promise you - It's not too difficult to make!!

Ingredients:

3 cups of Gram flour
2 teaspoons coarsely ground pepper
2 teaspoons ajwain or alma (also known as Ajowan caraway, carom seeds)
1 teaspoon salt
2.5 teaspoons papad khar (available in most Indian stores --The papad khar is an essential and vital ingredient in papad and gathia making.  It's a mixture of carbonates of soda and sodium chloride. The quality of papad khar varies from one geographical region to another.  I would pick up a packet that looks more with granules rather than lumps.   Substituting it for Soda Bi-carbinate doesn't produce the correct recipe.)
half cup cooking oil for the gathia plus a couple more tablespoons to add when mixing the flour at the end.
1 litre cooking oil for frying the gathia.


Method:

1. Sieve the flour

2. Add the spices -salt, pepper, ajwain.

3. Make a dip in the middle of the flour and add half a cup of oil.

4. Put the Papad Khar in a small cup and add water to it and mix well. The khar should dessolve. Add this to the gram flour.

5. Mix the dough with some warm water. Continue mixing and add a couple of tablespoon oil. Keep mixing to form a dough that's not too firm.  Keep the dough covered for half an hour.

6.   Divide the dough into small pieces and roll them into golfsized balls.

7.  Heat the oil in a wok

8.  You need a rectangular board for this recipe.  I used a chopping board.  The grooves on the chopping board were useful for my next step.  Take a small ball of the gathia and place it on the board.  Press the palm of your hand on the dough and spread it upwards trying to keep it shaped like a wide long ruler.

9.  Using a knife, peel off the gathia as shown below.

10.   My wok couldn't handle the long gathia so I cut the gathia into two to make them manageable.  Fry the gathia in hot oil until they are crispy.

11. Serve gathia with Green Chutney, fried green chillies or Shambharo. Shambharo is a hot and spicy with sweet and sour tasting accompanyment for gathias. Its a stir fry dish made of sliced carrots, raw green mangoes, cabbage and hot green chillies.

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