The Indian subcontinent · Volume 16, The Ember Pit, the Merchant’s Table and a Desert That Wastes Nothing
Gatte ki sabzi
Marwari and Jain households, Rajasthan
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 45 minutes
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
The clearest single demonstration of besan's central role in this cuisine: a gram flour dumpling, poached then simmered a second time, built specifically because Rajasthan's aridity limited the fresh vegetables that would otherwise have carried a dish like this. The everyday version, as most commonly recorded, uses an onion-tomato gravy base; this chapter's research found no source giving a strict Jain-style version, no onion, no garlic, hing standing in for that aromatic base, with its own separate quantities, only the qualitative statement that such a version exists. Both are given here, honestly labelled.
As tradition built it
Serves 4. About 45 minutes.
Ingredients
An outline, not yet a recipe: the tradition's method with its ingredients named but not weighed. Quantities are being added from sources inside the tradition, lead dishes first.
For the gatte
- 1 cup (about 100 g) besan
- ½ cup (120 g) yoghurt
- ½ tsp ajwain
- ¼ tsp turmeric
- ½ tsp red chilli powder
- 1 tsp coriander powder
- to taste salt
For the everyday gravy
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 1 tomato, blended
- 2 tbsp oil
- ¼ tsp cumin seeds
- ½ tsp coriander
- ½ tsp turmeric
- a little gatte poaching water, to thin
For the Jain-style gravy (no onion, no garlic)
- yoghurt, whisked with besan
- ½ tsp cumin, for tempering
- dried red chilli, for tempering
- 1 generous pinch a generous pinch of asafoetida (hing)
Method
For the gatte
- Work the besan with the yoghurt, ajwain, turmeric, red chilli powder, coriander powder and salt into a firm dough.
- Roll into two or three logs about the thickness of a finger and poach in gently simmering water for 8 minutes, until they float.
- Lift out and slice into rounds once cool enough to handle.
For the everyday gravy
- Sauté the finely chopped onion and blended tomato in the oil with cumin seeds, coriander and turmeric until the fat separates.
- Thin with a little of the gatte's poaching water, and simmer the sliced gatte in it for 8 to 10 minutes.
For the Jain-style gravy
- Skip the onion and tomato entirely. Build the gravy instead from yoghurt whisked with besan, tempered with cumin, dried red chilli and a generous pinch of hing.
- Simmer gently until it thickens around the gatte.
What a modern chef changes
A precisely held poach, and the hing base reintroduced as a finishing oil
Rung 4
Method
- Poach at a precisely held simmer. Use the sous vide's water bath set to 96°C rather than an unwatched pan, for a genuinely even cook right through the log.
- Dry a besan powder from the poaching water. Dry a portion of the poaching water down in the dehydrator to a savoury besan powder and dust it over the finished dish, echoing the dumpling's own base ingredient in a second, concentrated form.
- Grind the tempering spices fresh. In the dedicated spice grinder immediately before blooming them, rather than from a jar, a small change with an outsized effect on a dish this dependent on its final aromatic hit.
- Finish the Jain version with a hing-infused ghee. Chinois-strained and drizzled at the table, so the aromatic base that the dietary restriction removes from the pan is reintroduced, honestly, as a finishing flourish rather than smuggled back in as an ingredient.