For Gatari Amavasya 2026, Try

Mutton Pandhra Rassa

Recipe

Gatari Amavasya 2026 falls on 12 August, the last day of the Ashadha month before Shravan begins, and with it fasting. Across Maharashtra, it's the day households go all-in on non-vegetarian food before roughly a month of abstinence. Pandhra rassa is one of these non-vegetarian dishes that might be a Kolhapuri dish, but is not fiery hot and red like the typical dishes which use Kolhapuri masala. This dish is white courtesy of the cashews and thin because of the rich mutton broth it is cooked in. The colour of pandhra rassa is in the name itself, with ‘pandhra’ meaning white and ‘rassa’ meaning gravy in Marathi. It's traditionally served as the first dish of a Kolhapuri mutton thali, not the main dish, with the broth-like consistency meant to be sipped or spooned before the heavier dishes arrive. The hot tambda rassa is served right alongside this white dish, and the red-and-white pairing is such a fixture at legendary Kolhapur eateries like Padma that ordering a thali without both feels incomplete to a local. Roasted dried coconut, cashews and a ginger-garlic-chilli paste build the masala base of pandhra rassa, which is nutty and milky. Locally, it's often reached for as a comforting, restorative bowl, the kind of thing that is prepared when someone in the family has a cold or a sore throat, valued as much for how soothing it feels as for its taste. Legend has it that the city's famous wrestlers, after a hard bout, would ask for a bowl of rassa to recover, which is part of why the dish carries a reputation as something restorative rather than purely indulgent.