Gulab Jamun ~ ICC October '09

Phew! What a challenge it was!! People like me, who thought Gulab Jamun was the easiest sweet were made to think twice before uttering that again! But regardless of how challenging it was, this was probably my best experience in making sweets. Now after making these Jamuns twice or thrice before getting it perfect, I can assure that I can make best Gulab Jamuns from the scratch! Oh, that was intention of ICC right? :) So here we go on to my maiden venture of ICC of the month, Gulab Jamun initated by Srivalli.

Before going into the recipe, a short story on my first attempt which was a complete disaster. I decided to try out a small quantity and started off with 250 ml milk. It simmered to about 1/2 cup of Khova/Khoya/Mawa. All was fine till here. Now the stupid chef in me woke up and led me through the rest of process. Before I could realise, I had added twice the amount of Maida as to Khova. Needless to say, the result was chunky, elastic balls that could noway qualify for a sweet, let alone Jamun!! ;)

In the second attempt, I donned the role of a sincere student who follow the teacher's instructions to book and went through all of the recipes given by Srivalli. It took me a while to understand the basics, but once I understood the bottom-line, I should say it was surprisingly easy and resulted in proper edible jamuns. I have followed the Yum Blog method here. But it is not Gulab(less) Jamun; I managed to get hold of a bottle of Rose water. So mine is GULAB JAMUN! Gee... :D

Gulab Jamun

The following recipe is from Yum blog.
Makes: around 25 Jamuns

What we need:
Khova – 11/2 cups/ 1 recipe I simmered 8 cups of milk and got around 1.5 cups of Khoya
Maida – 1 cup
Sugar – 3 cups (if you want excess syrup i.e floating jamuns increase by a cup)
Water – 1 cup (increase if you’re increasing sugar)
Cooking Soda – 3 pinches
Cardamom – 4 pods
Saffron leaves – a few I didn't add these
Oil – 1 cup (for deep frying)

Rose water - a few drops

Khova making steps
Method :
1. Combine sugar and water in a flat bottomed broad pan and simmer on a low heat until sugar dissolves. Add cardamom powder and saffron leaves (and a few drops of rose water) and remove from fire.
2. Knead khova, maida and soda and quickly shape into balls.
3. Heat oil on a medium flame. Fry the jamuns till golden brown over a low to medium flame, keeping oil temperature uniform. Oil should not smoke.
4. Drain the jamuns and soak in the warm sugar syrup.

Serve the jamuns after half an hour.

Tips:
You will achieve correct consistency for jamun syrup when 3 cups of sugar dissolves 1 cup water over low heat.
Only when the syrup is ready, mix the jamun dough. Since the dough has soda, if its kept aside the jamuns will disperse while frying and will not hold well.
Right temperature of oil of utmost importance to get soft jamuns.
Never refrigerate jamuns. Jamuns when refrigerated will shrink and become hard. Jamuns will stay fresh for 4 days when stored in air tight containers.
If you like you can add two drops of rose essence to the syrup to make it Gulab jamun.

For this measurement, I got exactly 25 jamuns, of medium sized balls.

Important notes:
1. We must follow the same order to do the jamuns, i.e sugar syrup must be ready before we fry the balls.
2. Since the balls have soda, they cannot stand for a long time. So they must be fried immediately after rolling.
3. If the oil is not of correct temperature, the balls will be unevenly cooked.
4. Add rose water to the sugar syrup only after the syrup becomes warm. If added when the sugar is boiling, it will turn bitter.

My experience:
1. I also used a tbsp of melted ghee to roll out smooth, crack-less balls.
2. I did a mistake of heating the oil too much, so some of the balls turned dark brown. For the second batch, I adjusted the oil temperature and got them right.


Hope you all enjoyed this challenge as much as I did!

Happy cooking and happy blogging!