Jalebi

A plain-flour batter piped in a spiral, and it is eaten with curd or rabri.

Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains dairy (ghee), dairy (rabri), dairy (whole milk), dairy (yoghurt).

Ingredients

• 250 g maida, plain flour
• 2 tablespoons cornflour
• 250 ml water, for the batter
• 400 g sugar
• 200 ml water, for the syrup
• 1 teaspoon kewra water
• a pinch of saffron
• ghee or oil for deep frying
• curd or Rabri, as on its own page, to serve

Method

1. A PLAIN-FLOUR BATTER PIPED IN A SPIRAL, AND IT IS EATEN WITH CURD OR RABRI. Its article gives both halves: the South Asian form is made by deep-frying a MAIDA batter in pretzel or circular shapes which are then soaked in sugar syrup, and it is eaten with curd or with rabri, with kewra as an optional flavouring. Plain flour is what makes the strand crisp and hollow; the black gram batter on the imarti page here behaves quite differently. And it is a savoury-sour accompaniment rather than cream: cold curd against hot syrup is the whole pleasure of it.
2. THE BATTER IS THIN ENOUGH TO POUR IN A THREAD. Flour and cornflour whisked with the water until it runs off the whisk in an unbroken line. Too thick and it drops in blobs; too thin and the spiral breaks in the fat.
3. IT IS BEATEN HARD, AND THAT IS THE ONLY LIFT IT HAS. Five minutes of beating works air in. Its article names no raising agent and no fermentation, and this page will not invent either.
4. THE SYRUP IS MADE FIRST AND KEPT WARM. Sugar and water boiled two or three minutes to a thin syrup -- one that coats a spoon and nothing more. Thick syrup will not soak in and sets to a crust on the outside.
5. THE SAFFRON AND KEWRA GO IN THE SYRUP, OFF THE HEAT. Boiled, kewra loses everything that makes it worth having.
6. IT IS PIPED FROM THE CENTRE OUTWARDS IN ONE MOVEMENT. A squeeze bottle or a cloth bag with a small hole, held close to the fat, two or three turns of a spiral finishing with a loop back over itself. Stop and start and the strand parts.
7. THE FAT IS MODERATE AND SHALLOW. Enough to float them, not enough to drown them, at about a hundred and eighty degrees. They want to colour in under a minute a side.
8. THEY GO FROM THE FAT INTO THE SYRUP AT ONCE, AND STAY UNDER A MINUTE. Hot into warm. Any longer and they go soft; cooled first and they will not take the syrup up at all.
9. THE SAME SHAPE EXISTS MADE OF CURDS, AND IT IS A DIFFERENT SWEET. Chhena Jalebi, as on its own page, is acid-set curds rolled into the same pretzel by hand. Soft and milky where this is brittle and crisp.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under India · All recipes