JALEBI

I thought both Jangiri and Jalebi were same until I tasted hot jalebi's in one of the restaurants in Chennai.Perhaps that was when I took a closer look and Jangiri and realized that the way it is swirled is completely different from Jangiri. Jangiri is swirled with large circles and small circles in the edge of the outer circles and Jalebi is just swirled in concentric circle. Jangiri is made of urad dhal whereas Jalebi is prepared with Maida.Jalebis tastes best when served hot. Ok enough of the differences and coming to the recipe (I learnt this from one of my friends)

Ingredients

All purpose flour/Maida: 1 cup
Thick curds: 3/4 cup
Ghee/Oil: 2 tablespoon
Corn flour: 2 tablespoon
Baking soda: a pinch
Food color (yellow/orange): a pinch
Oil: for frying

For sugar syrup
Sugar: 1 cup
Water: 1 cup
Cardamom powder: a pinch
Saffron: few strands

Procedure:
Mix all purpose flour, corn flour, baking soda and curd
Add hot ghee/oil and mix well. The batter should be thick
Allow this to ferment for 8 - 12 hrs.(The batter will not double in size)
Mix the batter well
Boil 1 cup of water and sugar until it reaches 1 string consistency
Add cardomaom powder, food color, lime juice and saffron to the sugar syrup and keep heating in a very low flame
Heat oil in a pan in parallel
Pipe the jilebis using ziplock piping bags
Fry on both sides and dip the jilebis in the hot sugar syrup for a minute
Drain the jalebis and serve

Notes:
The consistency of the batter should be thick. If it is runny the jalebis would be flat
It is best to use piping bags rather than ziplock bags. Some ziplock bags may tear in the heat of the oil
If you stay in cold countries,keep the batter in oven with lights switched on to ferment
The temperature of oil is more important.If the oil is too hot, you wont be able to pipe the shapes (circles). If the temperature is low, the jalebis would not be crisp.Make sure while you pipe, you reduce the flame and increase it to medium while frying (As a test, drop a little batter in the oil. If it immediately floats up, you wont be able to pipe the circles. Reduce the temperature a bit and try)