Gathia: Lamba, fafda or Pata Gathia (ganthia)

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 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. The Jalebi recipe is here.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups of Gram flour
• 2 tsps coarsely ground pepper
• 2 tsps ajwain or alma (also known as Ajowan caraway, carom seeds)
• 1 tsp salt
• 2.5 tsps 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 and add the spices -salt, pepper, ajwain.

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

3. 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 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.

4.   Heat the oil in a wok and divide the dough into small pieces and roll them into golf sized balls.

5.   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.

 

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

8.   Fry the gathia in hot oil – turning them gently until they are crispy.

9. Serve gathia with Green Chutney, fried green chilies or Shambharo.  Shambharo is a stir fry dish made of sliced carrots, raw green mangoes, cabbage and hot green chilies. It’s hot and spicy with sweet and sour tasting accompaniment is perfect for gathias.

 

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