This week, we asked a London Indian snack place to courier fafda gathia and khajalis to us  as we really fancied them and have not been able to go to London.  Both the products arrived the next day all nicely packed.

Gathia are savoury snacks made from chick pea flour which are often served as a snack or part of an Indian thali at weddings. Khajali reminds me of  Weetabix.  They can be plain or savoury and are flaky.  They are  often eaten dunked or soaked in masala tea.  Khajali’s are a favourite of my husband and I have not been able to find a perfect recipe for making them so we usually get family members to get them for us when they are visiting or we buy them online from the same snacks and sweet shop in London.    My hubby has typical Gujarati tastes and loves eating his gathia with either spicy hot sambharo or Green chutney.   Sambharo is basically a hot and spicy salad made using cabbage, chilies and raw papaya – which is served as a condiment with an Indian thali and also as a condiment with some Indian snacks such as gathia.  I didn’t have the raw mangoes and papaya so used whatever ingredients were available in Tesco – our local supermarket to make  the sambharo. We picked the greenest and hardest mangoes and papaya for this recipe.  When chopped – they  were  a bit ripe but it worked fine and the sambharo tasted great and saved the day.

Ingredients

• 1 small papaya  grated (pick the greenest one)
• 1 medium mango  grated (Pick the hardest ine)
• 1 cup grated white cabbage
• 2 small grated carrots
• 8-10 Kenyan green chilies sliced. (you can use more or less)
• 1 sliced yellow and green peppers
• 2 tbls oil (I used sunflower oil)
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tbls lemon juice
• less than half tsp. chili powder

Method

1.  Wash and grate the papaya, mango, cabbage and carrots using a mandoline if possible. Slice the peppers and chilies.
2. Transfer all the vegetables and fruit into a non stick wok.  Cook the vegetables and fruit at a low heat.  Add the salt, turmeric, chili powder and stir well and cook for 5-6 minutes.

3. The mixture doesn’t need to be cooked completely. 

4.  After cooking it for 5-6 minutes, heat the oil in a separate saucepan and add the mustard seeds.  Once they stop popping, add this on top of the cooked sambharo mixture and stir well.

5.  The sambharo is ready to serve with the gathias.

6. You can also spread the sambharo on French bread and serve it as an Indian bruschetta.

How do you make your sambharo?