A G^ach, literally means a quarter in Sindhi language. The sweetened dough ball is rolled into a thick ‘roti’, cut into quarters and deep fried. These fried ‘cookies’ are then garnished with powdered sugar, chopped nuts, dried rose petals and a spoon full of hot oil is poured on sugar. It sort of, forms a crunchy sugar glaze and makes the cookie more visually appealing though, more calorie rich.
Ideally G^ach are made using All purpose flour (Maida) with ghee for moyan but these taste good enough even if made with whole wheat flour.
Video Recipe of G^ach:
This time I made a vegan version by using oil instead of Ghee.
These fried cookies are made for Thadri and Mahalakshmi festival and are mostly sent to the married daughters/sisters as food gifts.
Shall share about Mahalakshmi festival in a separate post as we will be observing the festival towards the end of this month.
These are also known as Chotha/ Chautha (as in 1/4th). And if you cut these in round shape using a cookie cutter or rim of a bowl/glass, these are called Mithi Tikkyun (Singular: Mithi tikki), meaning sweet tikkis.
And well, the 39 th alphabet of Sindhi AlifBe is ڳ in Sindhi, ग in Devanagari and ‘G^‘ as in G^arho (Red), in Roman Sindhi. This is one of the peculiar consonants used in Sindhi language.
As obvious the corresponding dish starting with ڳ is G^ach.
Serves: 8 servings
- 2 cups flour (I have used whole wheat flour but these are made with Maida too)
- 2 tbsp Semolina
- ½ cup Ghee / oil
- ½ cup water
- ¾ th cup Sugar
- ¼th tbsp of Green cardamom powder
- 8-10 Almonds
- 8 -10 Unsalted pistachios
- Some dried rose petals for garnishing
- Oil for frying
- Grind ¾ th cup of sugar.
- Use ½ a cup from this and leave the rest for the garnish.
- Add that ½ cup of powdered sugar to ½ cup of water and mix.
- It may not fully dissolve but that's ok. Just make sure to stir it well while adding to the flour.
- Take 2 cups of flour and add semolina, elaichi powder and ghee/ oil. You may need ½ cup or little less of oil/ghee. Do not add oil at once since if it is in excess the G^ach will crumble while frying.
- Adding little oil at once, in the flour, keep mixing the flour to form crumbs.
- Take a portion and try to bind it in a fist. If the dough retains the shape, the moyan is sufficient. If not, then add little more of ghee/oil. Refer the recipe video!
- Now stir the sugar water mix and gradually add it to the flour.
- Knead to make a hard dough.
- Divide the dough into two portions.
- Take one portion and roll it using a rolling pin to make a roti of ½ or ¼ inch thickness, depending on how thick you want the G^ach to be.
- Slice this 'roti' into 4 quarters.
- Remember that these take a long time to fry. Thicker the gach, more the time needed for frying it.
- The edges may be rough. The beauty of Gach lies in the rough edges but if you wish you can use a mould to smoothen the edges.
- Heat oil in the pan and once oil is hot, lower the heat.
- Carefully add the quarters (do not crowd the pan) to the hot oil.
- Allow it to cook on low heat. Stir the oil but do not flip the G^ach yet. Allow it to 'set' well.
- If you flip it too early, the G^ach will crumble. If you flip it too late, it will over cook.
- Carefully flip the sides and continue frying on medium to low heat, till golden brown
- Remove from oil and drain on kitchen towel/ tissue paper.
- Now garnish each G^ach with a tbsp of powdered sugar that we saved in the beginning.
- Sprinkle some chopped nuts, dried rose petals and pour a tbsp of hot oil on each fried g^ach.
- Repeat the process with the remaining dough.
- Allow G^ach to cool well. Once cool, the G^ach turns darker and crunchier.
- Store in an airtight container.
- These stays good for almost a week if made with Ghee or for 3-4 days if oil is used. But I bet these wont last that long.
To watch the short video tutorials about how to write in Sindhi, do watch the video!
