JANGIRI

‘Jangiri’ is a popular Indian sweet – it goes by this name in South India; it is called ‘imarti’ in the North. It is very different from the ‘jalebi’ of the North but strangely South Indians loosely use the term ‘jilebi’ for ‘jangiri’.

Jangiri is my favorite! It has been – since childhood. Any feast which served jangiri was the ultimate for me!

My mother would make jangiri occasionally – my sons loved them and used to get excited to see a huge tray of orange, shapely, syrup-soaked, melt-in-the-mouth jangiris. My mother coaxed me to try my hand along with her. Though I began with apprehension, at the very first attempt, I managed to successfully squeeze out shapely jangiris into the hot oil in a shallow pan. Boy, wasn't I excited!  She had got me the specially stitched thick cloth (‘rut’) with a ‘button-hole’ in the center. 

Mom’s first tip was that we use whole urad dal of good quality. Then we should be careful while adding water while grinding – it should be minimum but the dal should be ground well. She also suggested that the batter remain in the grinder so that it could be run for a minute before making each batch. I had made some successful attempts when my boys were around – the last time must have been more than 15 years ago. 

Years later now, I decided to try my hand again – for my blog and for you dear friends. I goofed a bit about the grinding part – I had sprinkled water with caution while grinding but when I put a scoop in the cloth, I felt the batter was a bit loose. I wish my mom was around! The jangiris had decent shape but they were not thick. So they turned crispy and a bit oily but absorbed sugar syrup well. I was disheartened as they weren't up to my expectation. Nevertheless we enjoyed the crispy, syrupy jangiris. Hubby was very appreciative and pacified me with his comforting words “You see it happens when you try out a recipe after a long gap”.

I will make another attempt shortly rectifying my mistake; the recipe holds good, of course. So long then ……

                                  

                                     

Ingredients

1. Urad dal (whole white) – 1 cup
2. Rice – 1 tbsp
3. Saffron food color – 2 drops
4. Sugar – 1 ½ - 2 cups
5. Rose water – 1-2 teaspoon
6. Saffron strands – a few

Method

1. Wash and soak urad dal and rice together for 20 minutes.
2. Drain off the water and grind in a wet grinder, sprinkling a little water in between with a drop of food color till it is nicely ground (thick as for urad vada but a little more finely ground).
3. Take sugar in a big pan, add minimum water to dissolve it (½ cup or more) and boil.
4. Add 1tbsp of milk and boil. Remove the scum (impurities).
5. Add a drop of food color and boil the syrup to form one-string consistency.
6. Add rose water and crushed saffron strands.
7. Heat oil in a large flat shallow pan.
8. Spread the ‘rut’ (the jangiri-maker cloth) and put a big scoop of batter in the center and bring all the 4 ends of the cloth together. 
9. Hold the cloth just above the ‘bulging-batter portion’.
10. When the oil is hot, lower the flame and  start making the jangiri – hold the ‘rut’ above the oil and start squeezing the batter through the hole as you move your hand to make a 1" circle and then make small circles along its entire circumference to form the shape of jangiri. (See video above).
11. Make one or two more jangiris in the same batch.
12. Flip them after a minute and remove after another minute or so. They should just change color but not become brown or crisp.
13. Drain off the oil and gently drop each one in the hot sugar syrup.
14. Drain off after 2 minutes and keep them on a tray without touching one another.
15. Repeat with the rest of the batter.
16. If the sugar syrup thickens, add 1-2 tbsp of water, boil and continue.

Tips

1. Good qualiWhole white urad should be used for best results. My mom used to tell me that the batter should be used as quickly as possible – the longer it stayed, the more oil the jangiris would absorb. The syrup would be ready and oil would be on the stove at the finishing stage of the grinding job. 
2. Also she would not take out the entire batter from the grinder – just one big scoop at a time. And she’d run the grinder for a minute before taking out the next scoop.
3.  I had noticed that the last batches would not be as superb as the earlier ones.
4. You have to grind the dal in a wet grinder, mixer grinder will not do.

© Copyright 2011. Brinda Balasubramonian.