Sharmila on Food

Dhokla

Out of any Indian regional cuisine, Gujarati, for me, does snacky food like no other.  Chaat, pani puri - all amazing. Dhokla is another one I would add to that list.  It’s quite hard to describe, save it’s a moreish, spongey snack, flavoured with ginger, chillies and yoghurt, and topped with a rather tasty coating of mustard seeds and curry leaves tempered in oil.  Finish off with a flurry of coriander leaves, and you have a pretty formidable snack.  I used to love this as a kid - it was one of the things we would always buy on frequent family trips to Belgrave Road in Leicester to stock up on Indian groceries. 

However, I had almost forgotten about dhokla - I rarely stumble across it in London.  Until I was staring at the menu for a new Indian vegetarian place in East Dulwich.  And there it was.  I haven’t been able to get the tasty thought of it out of my head since.  Perusing recipes online, it didn’t seem that hard - I get the impression the real real deal can involve lots of soaking of gram and grinding this up.  Needless to say, I went for the recipe that just called for using normal gram flour (this is just chickpea flour, and is also referred to as besan).  So, I gave it a shot, and I’m pretty pleased with the results.  This is no light snack - it has some heft, but you always end up going back for more. 

I pretty much followed this recipe, save for scaling down quantity, and adding some finely chopped green chilli and sesame seeds to the final topping.  They are both sound additions.  For anyone who loves their Indian snacks, I would urge you to give this a go - little effort, lots of tasty reward.