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Chef Natasha Gandhi's new series on Instagram explores something unusual but so necessary! The chef is working with Indian dishes which resemble pasta! In the series titled ‘Finding Indian Pasta like Dishes,’ the chef talks about popular desi items which share several common traits with pasta.
“I’m finding pasta-like dishes from India; spaghetti, gnocchi, penne all may be cool but our Indian food culture has several pasta-like dishes and I think they may be much tastier. Pasta, for me, is a freshly rolled cooked dough in a delicious sauce,” she says in her newest video. Gandhi doesn’t just stick to flour-based dough but her series also feature recipes made with dal or rice-based flour.
Her latest video which is episode 7 of her series explores the recipe for Govind Gatta, a more elaborate take on the Rajasthani gatte ki sabzi. It features balls made out of besan dough, stuffed with khoya, nuts and spices and cooked in a delicious yoghurt-based gravy, made without onions or garlic.
“This dish is from Rajasthan; because this desert region had limited vegetation and water, the local community used dals to create their everyday food and this pasta was born the same way. This dish is like a ravioli, it’s stuffed with khoya, nuts and the sauce is a no-onion, no-garlic, yoghurt-based sauce which is very tasty, little tangy, little spicy, very wholesome,” she says in the video.
In her last video from the series gandhi featured the Mangalorean dish Yetti Masala Pundi which is made with prawns and rice dumplings. “I am a huge fan of Mangalorean Gassi, and pairing that with prawn and the Pundi, omg is a match made,” Gandhi said in her caption.
Some of the other dishes featured in her series have been the Bihari Dal ki Dulhan or Dal Pitthi (made with moong dal dumplings), Menthe Kadubu from Karnataka (made with spicy wheat dumplings), Maharashtrain Shengolya (usually made from horse gram flour and ghee), Kakka Orotti by Kerala’s Moplah community (featuring rice flour and coconut) and the Gujarati favourite Dal Dhokli.
