FafdaGram flour strips with papaya salad
On Sunday mornings, and above all on Dussehra, Ahmedabad queues outside its farsan shops for paper parcels of fafda: long, pale-gold strips of gram flour dough, crisp and gently salty with carom, eaten beside hot jalebi, a sour-sweet raw papaya relish called sambharo and whole fried chillies. The real craft is the shaping, done by pushing a little log of dough along a wooden board with the heel of the hand until it stretches into a thin ribbon. Chef's tip: knead the dough with your knuckles for a full 5 minutes until it turns smooth and slightly shiny, or the strips tear as you push them.

































