Serving Marathi Thaali

When I first time went to my in-laws place after wedding, I decided to prepare Brahmani style Marathi thali as novelty. My in-laws doesn't eat onion/garlic/anything sour on Friday's (because of Santoshimata Vrata). And what better that a typical KoBra lunch thali. At my mother's place we used to eat very simple, non-spicy food. The flavours are very mild and most of the dishes have sweetish flavour.So I thought this will be perfectly good dish for Friday lunch.
As this was my first attempt to prepare whole lunch for family of 4, I had to plan every step carefully on Thursday night itself.So I choose recipes which will be easy to cook and tasty. So this is what I served in thali (From left to right)

- Cucumber raita (Kakdichi dahyatli koshimbir)
- Coconut-coriander chutney
- Salt & lemon wedge for Varan Bhat
- Pumpkin flower bhajji
- 3 fold Poli/Chapati
- Moogachi Usal (in bowl)
- Potato bhaji with ginger-green chili paste
- Varan Bhaat (in center)
I served puran poli as sweet, but its not shown in the pic.

In the marathi thali, it is important to place the items at its correct position.The thought behind placing an item at a particular place is to ensure you are eating item in correct quantity.
In a typical thali this is how arrangement is done. The seq no. actually indicates in whar order they'll be served
Left --> Right
1. Salt,lemon piece: Salt is always served first. Its consider inauspicious to directly serve rice/roti/subzi
2. Chutney,Raita (koshimbir), pickle: These are spicier items in the thali generally Koshimbir will be prepared in curd or you can add lemon juice/powdered peanuts.Chutney is served to be eaten with bhajjis. So its generally wet chutney, but you can serve dry chutney.
3. Bhajji/Vada/papad: Something fried is always served in thali. It can be bhajji/pakoda/vada or simple fried papad. Most of the time bhajanicha vada or batata vada is served.
4. Poori/Poli: Poli can be regular poli or sweet one like puranpoli,saanjyachi poli. If srikhand/aamras (mango pulp) is being served as main sweet then poori is served rather than poli.
5. Sweets: Generally thali is prepared for some auspicious occasion as Naivedya or for some special occasion.So it was an unwritten rule to have 5 types of sweets in thali. 1-2 sweets will be treated as main sweets like puran poli,srikhand,basundi,sakharbhat,naralbhat and so on. Other 3-4 sweets will be served in small quantity which can be sheera,kheer,laddoo,puran. Main sweets like srikhand are served in bowl (to be kept on right side).Poli and rice are served as later course.Secondary sweets are served here.
6.Subzi: Generally 1 usal/gravy+ 1-2 dry bhajis are served.Most common is Dalimbi usal and Popato dry subzi.
7. Daal/Saar/Kadhi: Aamti (or daal),tomato/kokam saar, green vegetables like paalak/methi cooked in buttermilk are served.
8. Rice: In first course, Varan-Bhath is served with ghee. In next course pulav or masalebhath is served. As last course plain rice with curd or buttermilk is served. In between you can enjoy eating roti/poori and main sweets.
9. Matta/Spiced buttermilk: Generally in this is served as the spices like jeera/cummin, ginger will help in digetion.

As this was my first time, I reduced the items to make mini thaali. All the receipes were simple and I was able to multi task cooking 2-3 receipes at time easily.
All receipes are given in later blogs. I'm sure even a beginner will feel comfortable cooking these dishes.