Gatari Amavasya 2026: How To Shop, Plan And Cook A

Malvani-Style Chicken

Or Mutton Thali For A Group

Quick Summary

Gatari Amavasya 2026 falls on 12 August, the last day of the Ashadha month and is the final day when meat, fish and alcohol are consumed before many Maharashtrian households give these up through the coming weeks of Shravan. If you're hosting the occasion, the natural centrepiece is a Malvani-Kolhapuri-style non-vegetarian thali centring around dishes like kombdi vade, a chicken curry and vade pairing, and the red-and-white rassa duo of tambda pandhra rassa. Read on for how to prepare for a group to make this day a seamless affair.

Deep Dive

The name Gatari is specific to Mumbai and its Marathi-speaking communities, and it goes back to the city's mill era. Migrant workers from the Konkan coast and the Satara-Karad belt who worked in Mumbai's textile mills would spend this day drinking and eating hard before Shravan's fasting period began and mills used to stay shut the next morning. The day is simply a no-moon tithi that marks the close of the Ashadha month in the Marathi lunar calendar, and the same tithi is observed elsewhere in India under different names, from Hariyali Amavasya in Gujarat and parts of North India, and Chukkala Amavasya in Andhra Pradesh. 

What sets Maharashtra's version apart is its food, and as Shravan approaches, many households pause meat, fish and alcohol for over a month, a practice followed by many communities with the same belief that digestion is sluggish during peak monsoon. Some periods, like Kerala’s Karkidakam, follow a similar logic, where rich foods are avoided as monsoon sets in and healing foods that are easy to digest are prioritised. Coming back to Gatari Amavasya 2026, this restriction often results in a shopping frenzy, so it helps to know what to get before diving into the cooking process.

What Goes into a Gatari Amavasya 2026 Thali

Malvani cooking belongs to the Konkan coast around Sindhudurg, where coconut, kokum and a dry masala ground from roughly fifteen spices is the base of the flavour. Kolhapur, further inland, contributes the rassa duo and its own kanda-lasun, or onion-garlic, masala base. Both are routinely combined in a single thali, which is why a modern Malvani-style feast typically includes kombdi vade from the coast served alongside tambda pandhra rassa from Kolhapur.

Kombdi Vade

This dish has two components: Malvani chicken curry and vade, deep-fried, puffed flatbreads made from a mix of rice flour, urad dal, and often wheat or ragi flour, which makes them crunchier than puris. There’s sliced onion, lemon, and sol kadhi to wash it all down. Here’s how to make this iconic pairing.

Ingredients:

• Bone-in chicken, curry cut, about 1.5 kg

• For the vade: rice flour, urad dal (soaked and ground), a little wheat or ragi flour, ajwain, salt

• For the curry: dried red chillies, coriander seeds, cumin, cloves, cinnamon, grated coconut, onions, ginger-garlic paste, kokum or tamarind

Instructions:

Soak the urad dal for 3-4 hours, then grind into a paste and mix with rice flour, salt and ajwain to make a dough. Rest the dough before frying. Dry roast and grind the Malvani masala with coconut; sauté onions, add the ground masala, then marinate and simmer the chicken until the curry thickens. Shape the vade dough into discs and deep-fry them. Serve hot alongside the curry

Tambda Pandhra Rassa

This is one of the most unique dishes that centres around stock, and both dishes in the tambda pandhra rassa combination are made from one pot of stock. The red version is the tambda rassa, which is fiery like the Kolhapuri masala, and is red courtesy of dried red chillies and the Kolhapuri onion-garlic masala, while the white version uses the same mutton or chicken stock but is finished with coconut milk, poppy seeds, and sesame for a milder dish. Kolhapuri thalis serve both side by side, so guests can dip bhakri into the fiery one and cool off with the pale one in the same meal.

Sol Kadhi and the Rest of the Spread

Sol kadhi is a refreshing Konkan Coast beverage that peaks during the summer months and is made with coconut milk, kokum, ginger and green chilli. It does double duty as a starter and a digestive, and it's the one item on your thali that can be made fully ahead and simply chilled. Round out the thali with phodni bhaat (tempered rice), sliced onions with lemon, and papad. Tip: keep the vegetarian sides simple since the two meat dishes already do the heavy lifting in the thali.

How to Shop for a Gatari Amavasya 2026 Group Thali

• Meat: a rule of thumb here is buying around 200-250 grams of raw chicken or mutton, with the bone intact, per guest, when it will share space on the thali with rice, vade and other sides. If making your thali meat heavy, up the meat quantity.

• Coconut: pick one whole coconut, or roughly 200 grams of grated coconut, to cover the masala for both curries across 6-8 servings.

• Spices: buy whole dried red chillies, coriander and cumin seeds, poppy seeds and sesame, since both the Malvani and onion and garlic masalas depend on freshly roasted, freshly ground spices.

• Rice flour and urad dal: keep them in roughly a 3:1 ratio for the vade dough, with a spoon of ragi flour for texture.

• Kokum: needed for both sol kadhi and, in many kitchens, the rassa base, so buy extra, since dried kokum keeps for months.

Shopping Timeline 

Just two days ahead, buy the dry spices, rice flour, urad dal, kokum, and coconut if not buying it fresh. A day closer to the Gatari Amavasya 2026, buy the fresh chicken or mutton, coconut milk, onions, curry leaves, and green chillies. On the morning of the main day, shop for bhakri flour or bread, papad, and garnishes.

Plan and Batch-Cook Without Losing the Whole Day

Cooking for eight follows the same sequence as cooking for twenty, and what changes is the number of batches, not the number of steps. A kilo of mutton stock takes the same hour in a pressure cooker whether it becomes the base for four bowls or twelve; the workload just increases because that batch has to run two or three times, not because any single step gets harder. Planning around that is what will keep the host off their feet for the entire day:

• The night before: grind the Malvani masala and the kanda-lasun masala separately and refrigerate them; marinate and portion the chicken or mutton; soak the urad dal for vade

• Morning of: start the mutton or chicken stock first since it takes the longest, then use that same stock to build both curries in two separate pots once it's ready

• Two hours before serving: shape and rest the vade dough; make the sol kadhi and chill it, since it only improves as it sits

• Thirty minutes before serving: fry the vade in relays, keeping the first batch warm in a low oven while the rest cooks, so guests get them hot instead of one pile going cold

• At the table: let guests build their own plate, keep the dishes within reach – vade with chicken curry on one side, a ladle each of the red and white rassa on the other, sol kadhi in a pitcher.

Hosting Made Simpler for Gatari Amavasya 2026

Stocking up on the basics and buying the perishables closer to the day, just like how tradition dictates, will make your life as a host simpler. So enjoy this day of feasting with an array of Malvani-style food from the kombdi vade to the tambda pandhra rassa. Make just enough to finish everything off before the fasting foods start dominating during Shravan.