Jalebi
Jalebi are Indian fried dough rings, deep-fried until crisp and then dipped in a thin syrup flavoured with saffron and cardamom. They are a fixture of street food across India, Pakistan, and the Middle East, eaten at breakfast, during festivals, or as a sweet snack.
The batter is built from wheat flour and a little chickpea flour, loosened with yoghurt and yeast. After a couple of hours of rising it is thin enough to pipe straight into hot oil, where it sets into the characteristic spirals. Hot rings into hot syrup: the sugar soaks in, the crust holds, and you end up with something crisp on the outside, sticky inside, and gone quickly.
They should be eaten fresh. Leave them too long and they go soft, which defeats half the point.
Ingredients
Serves 4–6
- 175 g plain flour
- 50 g chickpea flour, lightly dry-roasted
- 4 tbsp natural yoghurt
- 5 g fresh yeast
- water, to adjust batter
- vegetable oil, for deep-frying
Syrup
- 300 ml water
- 250 g sugar
- ½ tsp saffron, ground
- ¼ tsp green cardamom seeds, ground
Directions
Mix the plain flour and chickpea flour in a large bowl. Stir in the yoghurt and yeast, then add a little water at a time until the batter is thick and creamy – it should flow but not be runny. Cover and leave to rise for about 2 hours.
Put the water and sugar in a sauté pan and stir over low heat until the sugar has completely dissolved. Bring the syrup to the boil and simmer until lightly thread-stage, about 110°C (230°F) on a sugar thermometer. Remove from the heat and stir in the saffron and ground cardamom seeds.
Heat plenty of oil in a wide pan or deep-fryer to about 180°C (355°F). Test the temperature with a cube of day-old bread: it should turn golden in about 1 minute.
Whisk the batter thoroughly until smooth. Fill it into a piping bag fitted with a small nozzle (or a sturdy freezer bag with a small hole cut in one corner).
Pipe the batter in ring shapes directly into the hot oil – only two or three rings at a time so the oil does not cool down. Fry for about 30 seconds on each side until the rings are golden-brown and crisp all the way around.
Lift the rings out with a slotted spoon and drain briefly on absorbent paper.
Place the hot rings directly into the warm syrup and leave for 3–4 minutes so they absorb as much as possible.
Lift out of the syrup and serve immediately while still hot and crisp.
Notes
Active time about 15 minutes plus 2 hours for the batter to rest. Frying and dipping takes about 20 minutes.
Use a neutral oil with a high smoke point – sunflower, rapeseed, or peanut. The oil needs to be hot enough that the rings set immediately, but not so hot they darken before they are cooked through.
The syrup must be warm when the rings are dipped. If it cools it will coat the surface rather than soaking in. Reheat it gently if needed.
Jalebi cannot be made ahead. They lose their crispness within half an hour and turn into soft, sugar-soaked dough.
See Also
Green Chutney
