E for Elo-Jhelo

A crispy sweet bite for Diwali, a beautiful Indian Bengali sweet Pastry, crafted with love, a little Elo-Melo (Tangled) n a lot of Elo-Jhelo!

So as it turns out on this Durga Pooja, I was thousands of miles away from Bengal, I couldn’t absorb all the flavors, fragrance and sound that is all there in Bengal during the pooja, but perhaps so couldn’t some of you, who had to stay thousands of miles apart because life is like this or if you are someone who is not familiar with it-I will say get into it. For my dear reader who is reading me right now, I couldn’t give you something nice during the pooja, but now I can and Diwali/Deepawali is in the air and everywhere soon there are gonna lit a thousand lights, so I had to tell you about how to make Elo-Jhelo.

Think about this name ‘ELO-JHELO’, interesting name isn’t it? When I look at the word I feel as if it comes from the Aztecs, however it comes from Bengal, India. It is a sweet pastry, made out of all purpose flour, vegetable oil n ghee, sugar and some touch of aromatic spices. The dough is prepared, made into small balls, then they are rolled individually, cuts are splashed across the surface of the rolled thin dough, then folded over n over until it gets all tangled n overlapping, producing a beautiful spiral like shape which looks like flower petals or the shape of a flame from a lamp n the rest is on your imagination.

When I begin to wonder about the name, I try to connect the dots, like elo-melo in Bengali would suggest tangled, so on that line ‘Elo-jhelo’ may come from ‘Elo-melo’ because you see the dough strands are tangled in a way but never messy, they are beautifully elegant.

This pastry is deep-fried in flavorless vegetable oil, then a sugar syrup is prepared on the heat until it gets as thick like honey going towards one string consistency, the crispy fried pastry is dipped into the syrup to coat them, then taken out after 1-2 minutes and  they are ready. This is a kind of ‘Nimki’ which can be both sweet n savory, a nimki is a Bengali term for fried pastry.

Diwali or as we sometimes we say it Deepawali is just around this weekend, this is the time to prepare a lot of sweets- Gulab Jamun, Kaju katli, Motichur ke laddu n so many more, so make Elo-jhelo, the great thing about them is that they are not overly sweet, slightly sweet, they look great, they are versatile and it is so much fun making them with the whole family sitting around, the father making the dough, the mother rolling out, the little kids making the cuts- well it is a possibility…ha-ha. Most important is the bite-literally delicious n you always wanna have some more without eating a lot of sugar.

I flavored my elo-jhelo with white n black sesame seeds, and green cardamom n a touch of saffron, a traditional elo-jhelo is devoid of any such extra flavors and is still very delicious, so you can always go the traditional way or sometimes add flavors that you like. I incorporated the cardamom n saffron flavor in the sugar syrup itself. So this Deepawali I expect some Elo-jhelo in your home, have fun, share it with your friends, it is a labor of love.

So let me tell you now the secret, here we go.

For The Recipe: we will need

For the Dough

All purpose Flour-4 cups

Vegetable oil-1/2 cup (I used ½ tbsp of ghee n so I used less then ½ cup of oil)

Salt- a pinch

Water-slightly less than 1 cup

For the Syrup

Sugar-2 cups

Water 1 ½ cups

Green cardamom-2, crushed n slightly powdered

Saffron strands-2 pinches

For Frying

6-8 cups vegetable oil

1. Begin by adding the salt n the  ½ cup vegetable oil or a combination of ghee n vegetable oil like I did, if you are adding both like me then reduce the oil by the same amount so the total goes to ½ cup, rub the oil into the flour , do it well, make sure the fat is well distributed into the flour, rub the flour n oil together into your palm with a light hand, it will take 3 minutes, then start adding the water, add half the water at first, mix n then add half of the half, mix, see how the dough is coming, we will need slightly less than 1 cup water, so start to gather the dough as you add more water, when you feel the dough will come together you can stop adding the water, there will be around 2 tbsp of water left in the cup which you don’t need. So now knead the dough for about 5-6 minutes, the dough will become smooth, we want dough which is slightly firm, not on the softer side, so it will a little hard work kneading the firm dough. When the dough is smooth after 5-6 minutes, divide it in half, the roll each half into a cylindrical log, then with a knife cut the log at 1 ½ inch interval or tear off small portions from the log and make into balls of 1 ½ inch diameter. When all the balls are done, cover n rest for 20 minutes.

2. After 20 minutes pour a little vegetable oil into a bowl, take one ball and dip your finger into the oil and with that touch of oil roll the ball into a smooth ball again, oil the surface of the wooden board or marble slightly, oil the rolling pin, place the ball on the surface n with your palm press on it to make it into a flat uniform round disc. Start rolling the disc with the rolling pin into a uniform thin circle of about 4 inches in diameter, lift it up and sprinkle some white n black sesame seed on the surface, then place it lightly again on the surface, then with a sharp knife make a slit leaving about ½ inch space at the ends, after that make parallel cuts at about less then ½ inch gap. When the cuts are done start rolling the disc carefully at one end, hold the top n down portions of the disc and with light hands roll the disc onto itself, the slit strips will come overlapping and keep your hand at both the ends as you roll and with another finger help the dough to come up from the surface as you roll. At the end the strips will be overlapped and the top n down will be pointed holding the whole piece together.

3. Prepare all the balls like this, now place deep pot of kadai/wok on the heat, add the oil and let it become medium hot, we don’t want the oil to be very hot or the elo-jhelo will color quickly. When the oil is medium hot take one piece and dip is slightly into the oil, it should not start to bubble vigorously, if it is the oil is too hot, take it off the heat, let it cool slightly, now when you place the elo-jhelo it will start to bubble up a little or a moment after it goes in the oil, always keep the oil to low n medium low, add about 5-6 at one time, flip them every 2 minutes, when they attain a light brown to brown color you can take them off which will take about 5-6 minutes.

4. In another wok add the sugar n water on medium heat, let the sugar melt, then make the heat high and let it come to a boil,  give it around 10 minutes, check the syrup by dipping a spoon and place some drops on a plate and then touch it, when it begins to thick a little stay alert, add the crushed green cardamom n saffron strands, test the syrup again, when the syrup gets thick like honey or when you place a drop between your fingers and you can see one string forming between your fingers it is ready. Place the fried warm elo-jhelo into the syrup, coat it well , give them 1 minute in the syrup , then drip off the excess syrup and take them off. Prepare all the elo-jhelo like this.  Start making the syrup when you put the oil into the heat, this way when you first batch of elo-jhelo will be ready the syrup will also be ready and you can dip them right away.

Note: instead of placing the disc onto the sesame seeds, you can toast the sesame seeds on a pan and then coat the fried elo-jhelo as they just come out of the sugar syrup with the roasted sesame seeds, they will stick on the sugary elo-jhelo very well.

Hey, they are all ready now! They look amazing right, I told you n now bite into one and hear the sweet crunch n after that share the sweet crunch with all around you. Happy Diwali, Shubh Deepawali, Subho Kaali Pujo and guess what? Bon Appétit! May the light bless us.

The Tower of the Beautiful Boondis

Meethe Boondi, Mishti Bonde, small fried balls of chickpea flour dipped in sugar syrup

First of all I will tell you what are ‘Boondis’- well basically they are a sweet snack, they are prepared from a mixture of Besan/Chickpea flour and water, then deep fried in oil, then dipped in a sugar syrup, so the result is numerous crispy tiny balls coated with sugar syrup or often they are also soft n coated with sugar syrup. Whether they are crispy or soft one thing is common about them, that are they are just delicious in both ways, there is something about the flavor of the besan, the flavor of the oil, the sugar syrup absorbed inside, the crunch and the softness that is addictive. We just wanna keep on munching at very short intervals. Ha-ha.

This is one of my sweet favorites right from childhood, I think first of all it is the appearance that attracts everybody to boondis, the numerous small yellow balls hold together at times by a light coating of sugar syrup or the shiny soft balls that is indeed tempting. When we taste after the visual bite there is a satisfying feeling, they are not very sweet, moderately sweet.  

When I was a kid my dad would sometimes bring boondis/bonde from the sweet shop on his way back home from office or market and my elder sister n I would kinda jump on them-mostly we used to eat them on their own or at times we would eat the boondis with Luchi/Puri, crispy puffed rice known as ‘Muri/Murmure/Mamra’ and at times with rotis. The boondis that my father used to bring from the shops were always soft n shiny and we will mix them with crispy muri, which was such a play of texture, the soft boondis and the crispy puffed rice…let me say yummm... Try the boondis with paratha and you will also lick your fingers.

Still to this day when my elder sister/didi visits us, often she goes to the sweet-shop and she comes back with packet of soft boondis, she loves it now equally if not even more! My mother she loves the old way when she combines them with the crispy puffed rice.

Making boondi is rather easy, it is not very hard at all, in fact there are some crucial steps which if not done properly will make it go wrong, here I will tell you about them, so let me say this again, making boondi is easy. First of all the mixture of the chickpea flour/besan with water has to be beaten well with a ladle or whisk, you have to beat the mixture for about 10 minutes totally in 2 stages. Secondly the mixture of the besan n water has to be light n not thick, if it is thick the boondis will tend to have a tail with them and they will be quite hard, so keep the batter light that easily pours from the ladle, so thin consistency. Thirdly the oil has to be moderately hot, when we will place a drop of batter in the oil it should come floating to the surface of the oil in about 5-7 seconds, if the oil is lower in heat them the boondis will absorb a lot of oil and they won’t come to the surface in that time, if the oil is too hot then immediate they will go brown and before you can take them out they will go dark brown, so moderate heat and low to medium flame. Keep a big slotted spoon at hand which is called ‘Jhanjhri’ in Hindi in hand, in fact keep 2, one to produce the drops of boondi and one to take them out of the oil.

So let’s get making them! Here is the simple recipe.

For The Recipe: You will need

For The Boondis:

Chickpea Flour/Besan- 2 cups

Water- about 3/4 cup

Salt- tiny pinch

Vegetable oil- 1 ½ tsp

Vegetable oil-4 cups for frying

For The Sugar Syrup:

Sugar- 2 cups

Water-1 -1 ½ cup

To serve: Fresh Pomegranate seeds

1. First of all in a bowl add the besan, half of the water and with a ladle mix the besan so that there are no lumps , if you add all of the water at once you will have a hard time finishing off the small lumps in the watery batter, so add little water while the batter is tight n make the batter go smooth in that condition , then add some more water, make it go smooth again, then some more do the same, add the pinch of salt, mix well. Now the consistency has to be thin pouring consistency, so the amount of water I have mentioned may vary.  When you drop the batter from a height it should fall freely, test the batter by pouring a ladle of batter on the slotted spoon and drops of the batter should fall from it freely at almost one second or half second intervals. If the batter is thick the boondi will be hard and they will tend to have an elongated part with them-the tail. So the batter will be on the thinner side, not thick. When the batter is at this consistency whisk the batter for about 5-6 minutes, then rest the batter for 10-15 minutes more.

2. Let’s make the sugar syrup, so in a pan or wok add the sugar n the water, on a low heat stir this until all the sugar melts, then increase the heat to medium and give it about 3-5 minutes, after 3 minutes check the syrup by placing a drop of syrup on plate and test it with your 2 fingers, and it should feel slightly sticky like honey. So after 3 -5 minutes if you find the syrup has gone a bit thick n has become like honey, put off the flame and remove it from the flame.

3. In meantime when the batter is resting, heat 4 cups of oil in a big, kinda shallow wok/kadai or pan, make sure that the wok or pan is not deep; we need more surface area so that we can pour a lot of boondis at one time. If the pan is deep n small then we will have to fry the boondis in many batches. So heat the oil on a medium flame till it is moderately hot, test by dropping a drop of the batter and it should come floating to the surface in 5-6 seconds and also see if the boondi is round in shape.

4. After 15 minutes add 1 ½ tsp of oil in the batter and whisk it in, whisk the batter again for 5-6 minutes well. This whisking is important. So now we are ready for making the boondis. Take the slotted spoon and pour a ladle full of batter on the slotted spoon and you will see that tiny drops are falling on the surface of the hot oil and moving away to the rim of the wok, take another ladle full of batter n do the same. Do it until the whole surface of the oil is almost filled with little drops of the batter. Give them a minute then with another slotted spoon move around the tiny balls and flip them lightly in the oil. When the balls start to go light brown n crispy take them off with the slotted spoon and place them in the sugar syrup.

5. Now we will make the next batch, so make sure the oil is not cold or too hot, then do the same as before to make the boondis, and after about 1 ½ to 2 minutes when they are light brown n crispy take them out and place them on the syrup. Keep the boondis in the syrup for about 10-15 minutes, then take them off on a plate and now you can munch on and share with your loved ones or hated ones just to make them love you! Combine them with fresh pomegranate seeds and see the magic of both of them together!  So please enjoy and keep the smile on. Bon Appetit!

Jalebi khane kaun aa rahen hein?

The spiral way to a sweet bite: Good old Jalebi/Jilipi/Jilawii/Zulbia

There is something about sweet crunchy things and then there is something about sweet sticky crunchy spiral things. That thing is Jalebi. Before the spiral jalebi twist your neurons let me tell you it is easy to make and you can have fun making jalebis! Yes jalebi is easy to make, well almost. A simple batter of plain flour and water fermented over some hours either with yeast or without yeast and then deep fried in oil and finally dipped into flavored sugar syrup-and then the world has jalebis.

              Well  I have fantastic  memories with jalebis, some of them take me back on my school life while some take me back on distant mornings when my dad would brings jalebis on his way back home from the local market and it was such a high moment for me being a kid. Not that jalebis don’t get me high now, they recently did when I made them for the first time in my life, so I was pretty excited that day.

                                                      Back to the time when I was in school, our school used to serve us snacks around the middle of the day, that was one unique thing about our school.  Some days they will serve us something savory while some days they will serve us something sweet like jalebis! Right inside the school premises and adjacent to the big green football field there was the complex where our mid-day snacks used to get prepared; there were series of rooms with men busy preparing food for all the students, which was a huge task. While kids from other school used to envy us for this we felt it was an asset. Even the school bunking kids would show up around the mid-day so they can get their snacks! Food is powerful ;)

                                                                                     Some days the great cooks from our school would surprise us by making jalebis! We used to call them Tiffin-man, in the Tiffin time all the students would queue up along the corridor of the complex, the students walking away collecting 3 jalebis in his hand, he was being watched . And to tell you our beloved Tiffin-man made big fantastic jalebis n not just jalebis they made everything made tasty for us. Thank you our Tiffin-man, for you all did a very good work.

                                                                                                 Do you know that jalebi is popular not just in India but equally in the neighboring countries of Bangladesh, Pakistan, Iran- in fact Jalebis are popular across the middle-east Asia, Northern and Eastern part of Africa. So if you haven’t tried it yet you know just what to do. In India Diwali is coming, just around the corner, on 23 rd October this year and Diwali and Jalebi are very good friends together. So I am thinking that on this Diwali if we want to give it a sweet personal touch and make it extra special you know what we should all do? Yes!!! Make jalebis at home, there is nothing quite like it huh!

The origin of the jalebis in India perhaps can be traced to the medieval time, during the time of the Persian invaders. In Iran jalebi is known as Zulbia, in fact a 10^th century cookbook over there gives several zulbia recipes, in the 15^th century India jalebi has names like ‘Kundlika’, ‘Jalavallika’.

                            So this makes me think the hands of the jalebi is pretty long, it has won hearts in so many countries , in Iran it is ‘Zulbia’, in India it is ‘Jalebi’/’Jilipi’/’jilapi’, in Egypt, Syria, Israel, Iraq, Lebanon it is ‘Zalabia’ /’Zalabiya’, in Bangladesh it is ‘Jilipi’, in Maldives it is ‘Zilebi’, in Nepal it is ‘Jeri’, in Algeria and Tunisia it is ‘Zlebia’ /’Zlabia’.

                                           Now since the shape of the jalebi is like spiral and overlapping and complicated it is even in metaphor like if someone who has a complicated heart or brain we sometimes that ‘Oh! Your heart is like a jalebi!’, and at times since our intestine is also twisted n a bit spiral so when someone is having a wicked idea secretly and sensing that we say ‘ummm... there are spirals in your stomach like the jalebis’.

Now I will simply give you the recipe. Fry on.

For The Recipe: You will need

For the Jalebi mixture

Plain flour/Maida- 1 cup

Water –around 3/4^th cup

A pinch of baking soda

A pinch of salt

½-1 tsp of sugar

For the Sugar Syrup

Sugar – 1 cup

Water- 3/4^th or 1 cup

For Deep-frying the jalebis

Vegetable oil or ghee- Around 3 -4 cups

Note:

1.When the fried jalebis are dipped in the sugar syrup make sure the syrup is slightly warm and not all cold.

           2. About the consistency of the batter, lift the batter in a spoon and it should fall slightly thickly off the spoon, not very easily and not like it has some difficulty falling off the spoon; it should fall freely but with some resistance.

1. Let’s begin by making the batter which will need 24 hours to ferment, so simply in big vessel take one cup of plain flour and add the sugar and then start adding the water little by little. Add a little water at first and whisk to make sure that there are no lumps; once you have done that add more water and whisk. The consistency will be not thin but not too dense, so if you take up the batter on a spoon and let it fall it should fall just freely and if you try to make some shape like 8 with the batter on the batter itself you should be able to do it and the figure should be visible for about 10 seconds. If you add more water nothing to worry, it can be adjusted by adding some more flour or if you have made a thicker one add a little more water. Once the batter is ready, cover it with a cling film and leave it for 24 hours and it will ferment and develop an unique flavor. Keep in mind after the fermentation the batter will go little lighter because of the air bubbles so we might have to add some more flour in case it has gone a bit more light than what we need, which happened in my case. So I simply added some more flour and let it rest for 30 minutes.

2.  So now after 24 hours our batter is ready, add the salt and a tiny pinch of baking soda or baking powder. Now we will make the sugar syrup, simple in a wok add the sugar and the water, turn on the heat to low and let the sugar melt completely, after that up the heat to medium and let the mixture simmer and it will need about 5-8 minutes to get to the stage when we drop some mixture in a plate and when slightly cooled we pick the drop between our 2 fingers it feels a bit sticky like honey, we are not looking for 1 or 2 string consistency, just when it gets like honey and not too watery, it’s ready. Take it off the heat.

3. Now we will fry the jalebis, in a wok or semi-flat deep pan add the oil and heat it up until the oil is moderately hot, we don’t want the oil to be very hot when frying or the jalebis will color immediately, so first heat the oil moderately and drop a little of the mixture with a spoon to the oil and look for they begin to bubble immediately but not gets colored or burnt immediately, it is happens the oil is too hot so remove it from the heat for a minute or in case the oil is too cold, and the little drops of batter in the oil take a bit of time to bubble heat the oil a little more.

4. Now take polythene cone or a piping bag with simple ½ cm hole nozzle or a squeeze bottle with a nozzle or a traditional Jalebi cloth with a stitched hole in it or just like what I did, I took a empty thin milk packet, open it up and put some of the batter in it and cut a little hole in one corner! So now the oil is hot, let’s start. Before you do your first jalebi spiral on the hot oil itself, do it several times on the batter, practice it. simply move your hand in a round shape as the batter falls and it will create a spiral and make 2 zigzag movements so the batter creates a straight line on the spiral itself, it will hold the spiral in shape, if we only do the spiral without the zigzag straight lines it won’t be able to hold its shape when we turn them over, so to hold it we need to connect the spiral with overlapping straight lines to hold their shape. So one jalebi is down in the oil, quickly move to a new surface in the oil to make another one and then another. Make 3-4 at a time. Now depending on the temperature of the oil the jalebis will take about 2 minutes on each side to get brown, don’t get them dark brown, once they get light brown turn them over and give 2 more minutes, take them out on a plate and them dip them in the sugar syrup for a about 2 minutes on each side, while they are in the sugar syrup start the new batch of jalebis in the oil.

5. You can make the jalebis light brown or dark brown both and they both have a different taste because they have been fried to a different level. Both are enjoyed so I suggest you to make both kinds, brown some of the jalebis a little to the dark brown stage on one side , then turn them over and do the same, while in next batch fry the jalebis as they just begin to color and turn them over and do the same to the other side. Keep the jalebis in the sugar syrup for total about 5 minutes, not more than that, about 2 minutes in each side and take them off. And when all of them are done, serve them.

Come on now! Crunch on, Happy Jalebis to you. Bon appétit. J