Jangiris

Jangiri is an authentic south-Indian sweet. It's made with urad dal and soaked in sugar syrup. The shape didn't come well as I'm not a professional expert cook..........

Ingredients:

Urad dal - 1 cup

Orange colour - as you wish...

Oil (for deep frying)

For syrup:

Sugar - 2 cups

Water - 1 cup

Cardamom pods - 6

Rose Essence - few drops

Saffron strands - a pinch


Method:

Soak the urad dal for half an hour.

Grind them in a wet grinder into a smooth, fluffy and thick batter.

Add water little by little while grinding (It took me totally 45 minutes to do this).

In a bowl of water, if you add a drop of the batter, it should float up confirming that it is of the right consistency.

Add this stage add the orange colour and let it get mixed well.

After this is over, remove the batter from the grinder.

For piping the batter, use a sturdy icing pipe with round nozzle not more than 5 mm diameter.

OR Take a thick cotton 1x1 foot: punch a hole 3 mm diameter in the centre of the cloth.

Button-stitch it to strengthen the opening either by machine or hand.

Make a syrup by boiling 2 cups of sugar in a cup of water in a deep-sauce pan.

When it reaches one-string consistency, switch off the heat and add split cardamom pods, rose essence and saffron strands.

Leave a heavy ladle for dunking fried jangiris in syrup.

Heat oil in a frying pan on an adjoining burner on a medium flame.

When the oil is hot, make jangiris one at a time, directly over the oil.

Put half-cup batter in your piping cotton and gather it from 4 corners and hold it like a piping bag.

Pipe over the hot oil and inch above the surface of the oil.

A quick 2 rings of spiralling circle closely adjoining each other, continue piping small circles in one continuous thread over the rich formed by the spiral and finish when the small circles cover the entire ridge.

Break off by stopping the piping.

Move the jangiri away and pipe 2-3 more.

Fry on both sides crispy or soggy as you want.

Remove them from the frying pan with a skewer and dunk them in the syrup one at a time.

The jangiris tend to float and don't let it happen.

With a heavy syrup ladle hold it down.

After 2 minutes, they will be well soaked and ready for draining and laying out on serving tray.

Enjoy the jangiris!

Note:

-I never soaked urad dal more than 30 minutes.

-When you drop little batter in a bowl of water, it should float up.

-When you grind the urad dal in wet grinder, it will take 45-60 minutes.

-When you pipe the jangiris in the hot oil, it will try to move away so be careful and don't stop the piping till you finish it.

-Always dunk the jangiris immediately in the syrup after frying them.

-The syrup should be warm.

-Don't fry the jangiris too crispy.

Sent off to Shanthi Krishna Kumar's "Dussehra, Dhanteras & Deepavali" event, Priya's Feast's "Diwali 2009 contest" event and Sireesha's "Sweet series" event.

Posted in: Diwali sweets, Sweet