Gulab Jamun ~ ICC October 2009

A warm hello to all my blogger friends & readers. I am posting a blog entry after quite some time. I was a little busy with certain priorities and blogging took a back seat.Hope I will be regular here after.

The recipe for today is sinfully delicious gulab jamuns which is a famous dessert in India. Unlike other sweets, this is popular through out India. For those of you, who are unfamiliar with the sweet, Gulab jamuns are milk dumplings fried in oil and soaked in rose flavoured sugar syrup.

The sweet can be made in a jiffy if you are making it with MTR gulab jamun mix. Trust me, it is so simple and one can make it perfect in the very first attempt.

For october's challenge, it is going to be 'Gulab Jamuns'. Do you wonder what is the challenge?

Here comes the catch. You got to make it from the scratch, meaning no ready made mix. You got to make the khoa, all by yourself which forms the base for the sweet.

This needs lot of patience since the process can take any where between 1.5 to 3 hrs depending on the amount of khoa. It was also a bit tricky since I didn't have a heavy vessel. I was on a look out for a heavy vessel and finally decided to use my pressure cooker's bottom. The cooker is a small one with 3 litres capacity. So I had to do it with all the more patience, by adding milk little by little. I first sterilized my cooker with hot water to avoid my curdling of milk.

What is a challenge, without such testing tasks?

Once you are done with the khoa, it is really easy. I made the khoa with a little less than solid consistency since I intended to make the jamuns, the next day. By the time I got down making it, the khoa was in a perfect shape.

With no further ado, let's get into business. Srivalli had posted 3 different recipes. I have given below whatever I tried.

To make Khoa: (from Indo)

In a wide mouthed heavy bottom pan add the milk and heat it in a medium flame (add a couple of stainless steel spoons into the milk to avoid burning)

Reduce the milk for 3-4 hours till the milk solidifies and becomes thick.

(6 cups of milk (1 & 1/2 litre) might come to 250grams of unsweetened Khova.)

(The following recipe is from Alka)

The recipe is divided in two parts, one is making the Jamuns and frying them. The other is making sugar syrup.

For sugar syrup:

Ingredients:

Sugar - 500 gms (This can be reduced as per taste)

Water - 1 & 1/2 cup (bit more or less)

Cardamom - 2-3

One spoon of milk (optional)

Few threads of saffron (optional)

2-3 drops of rosewater (optional but highly recommended)

Method:

Mix about 500 gms of white sugar in one and half cup water and keep it for boiling.

Add a spoonful of milk to remove the impurities (impurities if any, will form a scum on surface)

Add 2-3 green cardamoms also in syrup for strong flavor, and a tad of saffron strings (optional)

Boil until you get just a tad sticky syrup. Gulab Jamun syrup is not very dense nor too dilute as in Rasgulla

Strain the syrup, add rosewater when syrup is slightly cooled.

Always remember two things while using rose water, do not add it while syrup is bubbling hot or on fire, and be particular about the quantity mentioned in every recipe, since even few drops of excess rosewater could lend a bitter taste to the final product.

For Gulab Jamun:

Ingredients:

Unsweetened Maawa* - 250 gms

All purpose flour - 1 & 1/2 - 2 tsp

Cornflour - 1 tsp

Green cardamom - 1-2 crushed

Oil for shallow frying

* (khoya-the condensed milk thickened till it turns into moist dough, preferably made from cow’s milk, also known as Hariyali mawa)

Method:

Mix all the ingredients in a wide mixing bowl until soft textured dough is obtained (keep mixing until it is really soft)

Make very small sized balls (bit larger than pebbles) as they swell up after frying and soaking in syrup

Make sure that the surface of dough balls is really smooth without any cracks. In case the cracks refuse to go away, slightly wet your palms with water and roll the flour till absolutely smooth.

Now take little oil for frying in preferably flat bottomed pan, and heat the oil. But gulab jamuns are to be fried on LOW FLAME or else the surface will be browned while the core will remain uncooked. Some prefer to place an unsalted pistachio in the center of every gulab jamun while making balls, that way the core of gulab jamun is not left uncooked .

Fry one or 2 gulab jamuns at a time and always remember to STIR THE OIL with slotted spoon AND NOT TO TOUCH GULABJAMUNS, which means keep swirling the oil without tossing or turning gulab jamun.

Fry till light brown in colour, remove on tissue paper and repeat the procedure with rest of dough.

Now soak these in COOL syrup for few hours. They will surely swell up

These can be stored in the same syrup till consumed

If there are cracks in the balls before frying it will burst open while frying, in that case adding a bit of cornflour will surely help

You can enjoy it hot or cold ,either way it is delicious

Verdict: I survived the challenge and the result was sinfully delicious, melt in the mouth jamuns.

Time for me to gobble one more jamun. :)

To my blogger friends: Sorry for not staying in touch. Will hop into your blog, shortly.