GUJARATI SPICED WHOLE WHEAT PASTA CURRY – DHOKLI
While we swoon over fresh pastas from Italy, let us consider a traditional Pasta dish from Gujarat that will swoon the Italianos instead!
Most of Gujarat knows and makes ‘Dal Dhokli’ – Pasta in Lentils, but I find it much to heavy and prefer this recipe without lentils but with lots of green vegetables and a delicious spiced tomato broth.
Last evening became an impromptu evening @rd.nehra ‘s and as usual, I offered to cook them a dish from my childhood (The Bollywood music and atmosphere in her kitchen took me back to old times). I have special memories of my mother letting me cut the pasta and even let me put it in the boiling broth – carefully. One can assume what this dish means to me personally BUT it also one of my absolute favorite Indian dishes ever! The ‘dhokli’ sheets are silky and full of flavour and complex aromas, the broth itself is tangy, spicy and is balanced with a moorish sweetness of jaggery. It’s a one pot dish, super easy to create and lots of fun to make. It’s a dish one can make with friends and family because it is a dish that evokes interaction.
I HIGHLY recommend this simple peasant dish from the villages of Gujarat 👩🏻🍳♥️🇮🇳
Ingredients
Dough
2.5 cups flour
1/2 cup besan (chickpea flour)
1 tsp ajwain (carom seeds)
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp red chili powder
Pinch of hing (asofetida)
1.5 tsp salt
1 tbsp vegetable oil
Water for binding
Curry
4 tomatoes grated whole
1 tsp grated garlic
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp ajwain
1 tsp hing
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp red chili powder
1 tbsp grated jaggery
Lemon juice to taste
Salt to taste
6 cups of hot water
1/2 cup chopped coriander
1 tbsp ghee
Directions
1. Mix all the dry ingredients to make the dough. Add the oil and start adding a cup of water at a time untill you can form a semi firm dough. Check by pushing a finger in, it should come out clean
2. Heat a deep pan, add 2 tbsp oil. Add mustard seeds, ajwain, hing, turmeric powder and red chili powder. When it crackles, add garlic and stir. Add hot water into the pan and reduce the flame
3. Make golf size dough balls, pat with a little oil and roll into a ‘chapati/pasta’ thin round disk using a belan – rolling pin. Cut into diamond shape. The dough should easily come off the surface. Peel it and add into the Spiced Broth.
4. Roll at least 4-5 such pasta sheets and put into the broth
5. Add the tomatoes and jaggery and cook on medium flame for 15-20 mins. Your curry broth should have become silkier and thicker
6. Reduce the flame and add lemon juice, coriander, salt and find a slightly sweet sour, spicy flavor. Balance the curry by adding lemon juice/jaggery/salt if needed
7. Add ghee
8. Serve hot as a one pot dish or serve with a bowl of steamed rice with ghee and papads!
