Traditional recipes

Steamed, fermented rice-and-chana-dal cakes with a mustard-seed tempering.

Soft, spiced flatbreads of wheat flour and fenugreek leaves that keep well for days, the travel food of Gujarati families.

A mixed winter vegetable dish slow-cooked with green garlic, coconut and fenugreek dumplings. It is eaten on Uttarayan.

Thin rolls of gram flour cooked in buttermilk, tempered with mustard seeds, sesame and curry leaves.

Spongy, steamed gram flour cakes, soaked in a sweet-sour tempering. Often confused with dhokla, which is made from a fermented rice and lentil batter.

A savoury baked cake of fermented rice and lentil batter with bottle gourd, crisp on the outside and soft inside.

A thin, gently sweet and sour curd and gram flour soup tempered with ghee, cloves and curry leaves.

Toor dal cooked thin with jaggery, kokum or tamarind, peanuts and whole spices, balancing sweet, sour and hot.

A quick tangy tomato curry topped with crunchy besan sev, a favourite of Kathiyawadi dhabas and homes.

Long, crisp strips of besan dough fried golden and eaten with papaya sambharo, fried green chillies and kadhi-style chutney.

Thin wheat crackers roasted slowly until crisp, with flavours such as methi, jeera or masala.

Steamed rolls of flour and fenugreek leaves, sliced and tempered with sesame and mustard seeds.

Colocasia leaves spread with a spiced, sweet-sour besan paste, rolled, steamed and tempered.

A soft bun stuffed with sweet and spicy potato filling, pomegranate and masala peanuts, first made in Mandvi, Kachchh.

A thick pearl millet flatbread patted out by hand and roasted on a clay tawa, eaten with ghee and jaggery.

Fire-roasted brinjal mashed with green garlic, spring onion and chillies, the Kathiyawadi partner of bajra rotlo.

Baby potatoes in a fiery red garlic masala, a Kathiyawadi side dish and street snack.

A spicy curry of white peas topped with sev, onion and chutney, the best-known street breakfast of Vadodara.

A soft, loose steamed chana dal batter served hot with butter, spice powder, sev and green chutney.

A rich fudge of coarse gram flour roasted in ghee, set with sugar syrup and flavoured with cardamom and saffron.

A simple sweet of wheat flour roasted in ghee and set with jaggery, made in minutes for festivals and prasad.

A rich sweet of mawa, dry fruits and puri dough, dipped in ghee, made in Surat for Chandani Padvo.

A thick, creamy rice pudding slow-cooked in milk with saffron, cardamom and charoli nuts, eaten with puri.

Coarse wheat cooked with water and jaggery or sugar and topped with ghee, the first sweet a Gujarati bride and groom share.

A winter sweet of urad dal flour roasted in ghee with gum, dry fruits and warming spices.

Spiced wheat-flour pieces simmered in sweet and sour toor dal, a one-pot Gujarati meal.

Thin spiced buttermilk with roasted cumin, ginger and coriander, drunk with almost every Gujarati meal.

Light, fluffy fritters of coarse gram flour and fenugreek leaves, famous at the temple town of Dakor.

A soft, steamy dough of rice flour cooked with cumin and green chillies, eaten hot with oil and methia masala.

Crisp, puffed strips of urad and chana flour dusted with chilli and black salt, a Diwali snack of Gujarat.

A sweet and spicy grated raw mango preserve, traditionally 'cooked' by the summer sun.

Raw mango pieces pickled in split fenugreek, mustard, chilli and oil, the classic Gujarati summer pickle.

Thin rice-flour pancakes cooked between banana leaves, delicate and lightly spiced.

Pomfret coated in green coconut-coriander chutney, wrapped in banana leaves and steamed, a Parsi wedding dish.

Soft, creamy Parsi scrambled eggs with onion, tomato, green chilli and coriander.

A hand-patted flatbread of finger millet (nagli), the staple of the tribal communities of the Dangs.

Thick, soft-crunchy sticks of gram flour seasoned with ajwain and pepper, the famous snack of Bhavnagar.

A cooling summer drink of fennel seeds, sugar and lemon, served chilled.