Gol gappas are a savoury very popular amongst the people of India. There is no counterpart of these in British cookery. They are hollow, translucent and thin like paper. Their shape varies from that of a convex lens to a sphere of 1″ (2½ cm) diameter. (Recipe on.)
They are never taken alone. In fact the word gol gappa conjures in one舗s mind a number of other accompaniments that go as a rule with it. The first in this series is the zeera pani (cumin-seeds/tamarind-juice water). It is made hot by red chillies. The commercial people add very little of tamarind and use powdered dried green mango (amchur) instead as a substitute, in order to reduce the cost. They make it very hot so that the absence of the tamarind is hardly noticed.