Vaghar
SavedSaved
Home

About Vaghar

Thathai Bhatia recipes and food customs, gathered in one place: kept safe for future generations, and within easy reach of everyone who cooks them today.

Why we made Vaghar

Food is one of the strongest threads that holds the Thathai Bhatia community together. The community is small, an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 people around the world, and it has no state or script of its own. Much of its language, Bhatia Boli, lives on in its kitchens, in the names of dishes, ingredients and utensils.

For generations these recipes were passed on by andaz: learned at an elder's side by watching and tasting, and rarely written down. Since 1947 families have spread across India, the Gulf and further, and fewer young Bhatias now get the chance to learn that way.

Vaghar was made to help preserve this part of Bhatia culture and to make it easy for younger and future generations to reach. It gathers the recipes in one place, sets out each one step by step, and keeps the Bhatia names alongside them. It also records the customs around the food: the order of a meal, what goes with what, and what is cooked for each festival, fast and family occasion.

Vaghar is just as much for the people who cook these dishes every day, including those who have cooked them all their lives. Whether you are learning a dish from scratch or want to double-check the ingredients for a kadi you have made a hundred times, the recipe is a quick search away on your phone, tablet or computer. Big text, a step-by-step cook mode and read-aloud make it easy to use right there in the kitchen, and you can add Vaghar to your home screen so it opens like an app.

It builds on the work of Bharat and Deepa Chachara. Bharat began writing these recipes down in 1989, and together they published them as Panja Khada, meaning “Our Food”. We hope Vaghar helps their work reach the next generation, and that elders will add the recipes that still live only in their memories.

Gathered with thanks

The recipes on Vaghar were written by the cooks and writers named below, and every recipe links back to where it came from. We brought them together in one place, set each one out in the same clear format, and added a kitchen guide.

The name comes from the vaghar, the tempering of hing and jeera in hot ghee that starts almost every Bhatia dish.

Credits

Most of our recipes come from

Panja Khada

by Bharat and Deepa Chachara, Dubai

216 recipes, with the glossary, cooking terms, measures, kitchen tools and tips.

Bharat Chachara first wrote down Thathai Bhatia recipes for his hotel-management thesis in Mumbai in 1989. Copies went round the family and then became a small book.

In 2002 Bharat and Deepa published the Panja Khada cookbook in Dubai, with drawings of every traditional utensil. Deepa cooked and tested every dish.

The panjakhada.com website followed around 2010. In 2012 they published Panja Reeti Rivaj, on Bhatia rites, rituals, poojas and proverbs.

They also run the Buzzing Recipes YouTube channel and the Bhatia Buzz community, and made the album Hallo Dhol Vajayun.

The Bhatia Fusion recipes were sent in by members of the community. Each one names the person who shared it.

panjakhada.comPanja Khada glossaryPanja Khada flipbookBuzzing Recipes on YouTube

Kutchi Bhatia and Sindhi recipes

History and background

Pictures

The drawings of each dish are made for Vaghar. When we add photos, each one will name the person or site it came from.

Working recipes

A few dishes that Bhatia families cook have no published recipe. We added working recipes for them, put together from similar Bhatia recipes, and marked each one clearly. If your family makes one differently, please share your version.

About the nutrition estimates

Each recipe shows estimated calories (kcal), protein, carbohydrate and fat, for the whole recipe and for one serving or piece. They are marked Estimated because that is what they are: a rough guide, not a lab measurement.

  • Ingredients. We add up each ingredient’s amount, using typical values per 100 g in line with standard food tables such as India’s IFCT 2017 and USDA FoodData Central.
  • Cups and spoons. These are turned into weights using Panja Khada’s own measures where they give them (1 cup of flour is 150 g, rice or dal 200 g, curd 225 g) and standard kitchen weights for the rest. The Grams button on each recipe uses the same weights.
  • Frying. For deep-fried food we count the oil the food soaks up, about an eighth of its weight, not the whole pan of oil. Oil or ghee that goes into the dish itself is counted in full.
  • Servings. When a recipe says how many it serves or makes, we use that. Otherwise we estimate the number of portions from the weight of the dish, and the recipe says so.
  • Left out. Salt, water, and small pinches of spice add little and are not counted. Syrups are counted in full, so for sweets soaked in syrup the real figure is usually a little lower.

Real values change with portion size, the exact ingredients, and how much oil, ghee or sugar goes in. If you need exact figures for health reasons, a dietitian can help.

Bhatia spelling

Bhatia words are written in many ways: kadi, kari or kadhi; dar or dal; bhey or bhay. Search understands most of them, so type it the way you say it.