Gulab Jamun

Hope everyone is having a wonderful start to the new year! One of my resolutions this year is to be regular with posts on my blog! Something that I have been seriously lacking at the last few months. The other of course is to lose weight - I mean come on, do I even have to mention it?

But, first hurricane Sandy (gym closed for repairs), then the holiday season (hulloooo - Christmas Holidays and dieting??) and now the weather (temperature inversely proportional to amount of food consumed) have made it extremely difficult to keep the pounds off. Well, that's enough of the depressing talk - lets get into a more cheerful frame of mind - sweets always do the trick! 

The year has just begun - plenty of time to work on the second resolution! As for the first one, the first dish to grace the blog in the new year should definitely be a sweet one!

Well, DH has been mentioning gulab jamuns for quite sometime now. He is very picky as far as sweet dishes are concerned, not a big fan of desserts. So when he asked for this dish, I just couldn't put it off!!

Gulab Jamun is made using khoa (or khoya, whichever you prefer :) ), which is a milk product. It is very similar to ricotta cheese, but with lesser moisture content.

I had some ready made store bought khoa handy (I usually keep some in the freezer), so I used that. But it is pretty easy to make khoa at home as well - will post that recipe sometime. Feel free to use either.

Freezing cold weather and piping hot gulab jamuns - perrrrrfect! Better yet, hot gulab jamun served with cold vanilla ice cream, try it, trust me, its an awesome combination...

Preparation & Cooking: 30 minutes      Makes: 25-30
Ingredients:
All Purpose Flour (Maida) - ½ cup
Khoa -  1 cup
Baking Soda - ½ teaspoon
Milk - 4 tablespoons
Oil - for deep frying
For the Sugar Syrup:
Sugar - 2 cups
Water - 2 cups
Cardamom Powder - 1 teaspoon
Rose Water - 2 teaspoons
Saffron Essence - ½ teaspoon

Method:

1. Combine the sugar and water and bring it to a boil. Once the sugar dissolves completely, add the rose water, saffron essence and cardamom powder and switch off the flame. Make sure the sugar syrup is warm when you add the fried dough balls to it. It should not be too hot.

2. Mix the khoa, maida, baking soda and milk to make a firm dough. Depending on the moisture content of the khoa, you might need a little more or less milk to make a smooth dough. Cover this with a wet cloth or kitchen towel and set aside so that it doesn't dry up. 

3. Heat the oil for deep frying.
4. Make small balls with the dough and keep these also covered with a wet cloth or kitchen towel till they are ready to be fried.

5. When the oil is ready, fry the dough balls a few at a time till they are well cooked and nicely brown all around.

6. Drain out of the oil with a slotted spoon and directly soak it in the warm sugar syrup.
7. Wait for the jamuns to nicely soak up the sugar syrup and increase in size (approximately half an hour should do the trick).

8. Serve hot or cold (refrigerated) as desired. Personally, I prefer it hot with a dollop of ice cream on the side.

Handy Tips:

The dough balls should be small- they will soak up the sugar syrup and increase in size. Bigger sized balls will result in bigger gulab jamuns.

Make sure the balls are smooth, if there are any cracks, the balls could break up and disintegrate, either while frying, or later when they are soaked in the sugar syrup.

You may garnish the gulab jamuns with chopped nuts or edible silver.

Sending this across to 

Just Cooking N Baking's "Hot Beverages and Desserts withing 45 minutes".