Jalebi & Rabdi

Posted by Maria George at Sunday, November 16, 2014 Labels: , , , No comments

Last week, my boss took my colleague and me out for dinner to Masala Library. He wanted us to experience an Indian restaurant that does things different. It was certainly interesting, some of those things were really good, but to be really honest, there was nothing that really blew me away. Perhaps I've become too picky. Like they were trying too hard and not really getting there. One of those things I really enjoyed there was the jalebi caviar. Little boondis of jalebis packed into a circular disc surrounded by a pool of rabdi. I knew I had to try making it. So here it is, my foray into Indian desserts on this blog.



Let's start with the rabdi. I knew I wanted a thicker version than what I had. I pictured something like the coconut cream pannacotta that I'd made a while ago. Rabdi with little boondis of jalebis on top. But rabdi has a slightly rough, slightly lumpy texture which is very different and that's what makes rabdi rabdi instead of condensed milk I guess. So I didn't want to mess around with it and make it a jelly. I might try turning it into an ice cream sometime. It has the fat, but lacks the sugar (atleast in my version), so that might cos a problem. But anyway, rabdi is very easy to make so long as you keep a watchful eye over it while it cooks. Just bring milk, sugar, cardamom to boil in a pan and let it reduce on a low flame, stirring occasionally. All you need to make sure is the milk doesn't burn at any stage.



Since I had no experience making either Jalebis or Rabdi, I referred to Archana's Kitchen for which I'm receiving a lot of sponsored requests on Facebook. Actually, I just googled for these things and Google threw up Archana's Kitchen as the option. Contrary to what I thought and imagined, Jalebis are really simple to make. I hardly made any changes to the original recipe except not adding turmeric, using colour, cos I wanted this vitriolic orange :D and cutting down on the sugar syrup cos I ran out of sugar. I wanted to make boondis like I'd seen, but I thought I'd try the regular way once and then come back later for the boondis. I piped the jalebis really thin. I wanted a crunchy jalebi on which I could scoop up rabdi. So the ones you see in the pics are more crunchy than juicy. I also had a couple of samples which were thicker and hence had more volume to absorb the sugar syrup. I like these pretzel-y jalebis which I can use to scoop rabdi better. And hence this is a bastardised version of jalebis and rabdi with no actual major changes to the recipe.


JALEBIS

1 cup all purpose flour
2 tbsp corn flour
3/4 cup yoghurt
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp ghee
2 tbsp oil
either colour or turmeric to slightly colour the batter

Sugar Syrup
1 cup water
1 cup sugar

Mix dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately, Combine both together to get a thick batter
Leave this mix overnight to let it ferment. It should rise during fermentation.
Gently fold the batter onto itself without losing the air pockets. Apparently this helps the jalebi turn crisp and also leaves air pockets to absorb the sugar syrup

To make the sugar syrup, boil water and sugar together till sugar melts.

To make the jalebis, preheat oil for deep frying. From experience I'd suggest using a smaller kadai since otherwise you'd be throwing away a lot of oil.
Pour batter to piping bag and make a small cut at the bottom depending on thickness of jalebi you want.
Test heat of the oil but piping two drops of batter into the oil. If it rises immediately to the surface, the oil is hot enough.
Pipe squiggles onto the oil. Make whatever shapes you want. In my case since the jalebis were piped really thin, I had to pipe a lot on one squiggle to give it enough substance so it doesn't burn.
Fry till crisp all across. Flip if required.
Drop in sugar syrup. Let it soak for one minute to absorb the syrup. Drain and eat the jalebis hot.

SET RABDI *

500ml milk
2 tbsp sugar
4 cardamom pods seeds crushed

Boil milk and sugar over low heat stirring occasionally. You don't need to stir rabdi continuously.
Scrape the thickened bits sticking to the sides into the milk occasionally and continue letting it cook
Reduce it till it thickly coats the back of a spoon
Add crushed cardamom and stir well.
Pour into tiny ramekins and let cool. (Rabdi set like this will have a smooth top. I had it in two cups and because the image wasn't coming out right with a half filled up, I scooped out from one cup and moved to the other. Hence the uneven top)

To have a flowing rabdi, just don't let it reduce so much, As soon as it coats the back of a spoon you can take it off the heat. The one I showed yields approximately 100 ml for 500ml milk.
Also, this rabdi is not as sweet as the regular ones. I think jalebis are dunked in enough sugar to offset it when had together.

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