Whip It Up Wednesdays – Shweta’s Delectable Jalebi
You cannot call yourself a true desi if you haven’t had Jalebi! This Whip-it-up-Wednesdays we have for you this perfect easy to make, sweet delicacy from Shweta’s kitchen.
Jalebi is a very popular Indian sweet that is spiral-shaped, chewy textured, juicy, and crispy. Most of us love jalebi with hot tea or in hot milk. Making jalebi is a time-consuming process but I am sharing a recipe to make instant jalebi in lesser time.
Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 20 minutes
Yield: 4 servings (4 Quarter Plates)
Ingredients:
A. Batter
1. One cup all-purpose flour (maida)
2. Quarter cup white urad/udad lentils or urad dal
3. Quarter teaspoon baking powder
4. A three-quarter cup of water
5. One pinch of red food color or turmeric powder, for color
B. Sugar Syrup aka Chaashni
1. Two cups sugar
2. One and a half cups of water
3. One teaspoon lemon
4. Quarter teaspoon green cardamom powder
C. Making Jalebi/ Frying
1. Ghee /oil as needed to deep fry, ghee recommended
Instructions
A. Preparing Batter
1. Wash the white urad/urad lentil properly and soak in water for a minimum two hours
2. Drain the water from white urad/urad lentils and make a smooth paste in a grinder
3. Take all-purpose flour in a large bowl and add food color OR turmeric, mix well
4. Add baking powder and mix well
5. Add water in parts to make a smooth paste
6. Add urad lentil paste into the all-purpose flour paste and mix well
B. Preparing Sugar Syrup
1. Take a saucepan over medium flame and add water and sugar in it
2. Boil it until sugar is completely dissolved
3. Boil it further for ten minutes
4. Check the consistency of syrup, it should be one-thread (see tips for more details)
5. Once you got the required consistency, switch off the stove
6. Add green cardamom powder and lemon juice
C. Making Jalebi
1. Take a cone with pointed tip/ squeeze plastic ketchup bottle and pour the batter in it
2. Take a saucepan over a medium-high flame and add ghee for deep frying in it
3. Once the ghee is hot enough, using cone/ ketchup bottle, squeeze the batter into the ghee in spirals/coils
4. Make jalebi spirals as per the size of the pan so that they do not touch each other
5. After one or two minutes, flip the jalebi to another side so that they cook on both sides
6. Once jalebis are crispy and golden brown in color, drain them from oil and keep aside
7. After thirty seconds, dip the jalebis into the sugar syrup and soak for one to two minutes
8. Drain the jalebi from sugar syrup and keep aside
9. With the remaining batter, make jalebis in batches
10. Serve hot
Tips
1. To check the consistency of sugar syrup while preparing it, dip a wooden spatula in the syrup and lift it out. Allow it to cool for a few seconds and then touch it with a forefinger. Now touch your forefinger and thumb together and pull apart gently. If you see the single thread is formed and it does not break, it means you have the correct single thread consistency to soak jalebis in it.
2. We are adding lemon juice so that syrup does not become thick
3. To check if ghee is hot enough, place the end of the wooden spatula into the oil. If bubbles start to form around the spatula and float to the top, ghee is hot enough to cook jalebis
4. Dip jalebi in lukewarm sugar syrup instead of hot syrup
