Last month I took a break from blogging and am back with another edition blogging marathon, # 70. Though I am back, I am going through a phase where I do not want to cook, click and edit anything for the blog. I hope I come out of this phase very soon. This week my theme is thalis from different Indian states. I shall share thalis from three different states for the next three days. The first in the series is Gujarati thali.

put together a simple Gujarati thali with everyday food. Gujarati food is sweet, salty and spicy at the same time. Sugar or a form of sweet is added to curries and dal. Since we don’t like sweet in curries and dals, I didn’t add sweet and kept it savory.

In this Gujarati thali I have a snack (farsan), kathod, vegetable (shaak/sabzi), semi gravy curry (shaak), kadhi and a sweet; sooji dhokla, moong mag, bhenda nu shaak, tametu batata nu shaak, kadhi and sukhdi respectively. A salad, dal, rotli and yogurt are missing in this thali. Though I had planned on serving simple salad, store bought roti and placing a bowl of yogurt in the thali, I forgot to so in a hurry to take to take the picture before dusk. However, though I missed some of the basic components of an thali, the platter still looks full. And moreover, though I made small portions, this food lasted me 2 days :)

Dal is a staple food in India. The basic recipe is similar all over India with few variations. I had initially planned on making Gujarati dal which has peanuts in it, along with moong mag. I already had too many side dishes and this food was good for 2 days. In the last minute modified the menu and made only moong mag. Cooking dal with whole dal (lentils) is knew to me and picked mag over dal. Moong is prepared every Wednesday in most of the Gujarati households and I thought it would be good variation to simple dal.

On the Thali

Sooji Dhokla – Steamed savory semolina cake

Moong Mag – Curry with whole moong

Gujarati Dal

Tametu Batata nu Shaak – Tomato potato curry

Gujarati Kadhi – Buttermilk gram flour curry

Sukhdi – Wheat flour jaggery squares or fudge

Roti - India Bread

Thepla

Bhakhri - Thick bread

I hope you like the this simple menu
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