Gujarati recipes

Sweet, sour and salty in the same mouthful, and often no onion or garlic at all. A lot of it is steamed rather than fried, which makes it lighter than it looks.

Jaggery and lemon or tamarind do the balancing that onion and garlic do elsewhere, and hing carries the savoury depth. Nothing here tastes like a dish with ingredients left out.

Besan does a great deal of the work: dhokla, handvo, muthiya and kadhi all start with it, which makes this a useful section for a nearly empty kitchen.