Jalebis (deep fried squiggly fritters)

Jalebis, Jalebis, Zulabia, Zalabiya is an Indian / Middle Eastern dessert or snack made from Gram flour and soaked lightly in saffron infused syrup.

Firstly, you need a squirt bottle to make squiggles of batter.

Make the sugar syrup.

160g sugar
125ml water
A few saffron threads

Simmer the sugar & water for 5 minutes until the mixture becomes thicker. Add the saffron or alternatively a drop of rose water or rose Essence. Set aside

For the batter you need gram flour or lentil flour. You can buy ready packaged gram flour but I just grind chana dhal into a fine powder.

1/4 cup gram flour
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cups water
1/8 tsp baking soda
A pinch of baking powder
1/8 tsp tumeric powder
A few drops of yellow food colouring

Mix all the ingredients and whisk for a min so aerate the batter. Pour into the squirt bottle and deep fry around 2 inches of batter in spiral design. Or you can just make squiggles.

I used Ghee to deep fry the batter for an authentic taste but Ghee is really expensive so I fry in small batches. Or you can just use vegetable cooking oil.

The batter makes about 2 dozen Jalebis. Fry until golden brown, place on kitchen towel to absorb the excess oil and dip into the sugar syrup. I usually dip and remove so that the Jalebis don't get too cloyingly sweet.