Sweet and juicy gulab jamun is the chosen recipe for October ICC. In this age of instant mix available to make them, Srivalli chose to do it from scratch. So we were required to make the Khova at home. The earlier posting date for ICC was last day of the month. After the over dose of Diwali sweets, I wanted to stay away from sweets for the rest of the month ( i.e only around 10 days). For sweet tooth like us, thats a long period. At first I had thoughts of giving this month's challenge a miss. On the other hand, I wanted to make it too. So I casually mentioned to my husband about the month's challenge and my thoughts of not doing it. He suggested making in small quanity and that was the gentle push needed and I went ahead with the preparation. Infact the day after I made, Srivalli mailed the challengers informing the change in posting date ie its going to be the 15th of every month. So that gave extra two weeks for us. But I had already made.
Out of the three recipe, I decided to follow the Yum Blog recipe. I used half litre of milk to prepare the khova and ended up with 3 tablespoons of it. I adjusted the quantity of ingredients accordingly and got 12 jamuns. Needless to say, we both finished it the same day. I am giving the measurements I used. So those of you, who are craving for jamuns and want to try in a small batch, here is the recipe for you.
Khova - 3 tblspn
Maida - 1 tblspn
A tiny pich of soda
Milk - 1 tblspn (you may require )
Oil - 1 cup to deep fry
For the sugar syrup
Sugar - 3/4 cup
Water - 1/2 cup
Saffron+cardamom syrup - 1 tspn
Rose essence - few drops
Method.
Preparing Khova is easy but time consuming. You have to continue boiling the milk till the solid residue is left behind. If you plan to make khova, make sure you have plenty of time to spare. While making khova for jamuns, stop the cooking when the khova is moist and not too dry.
Mix khova , maida and soda. Don't knead it too much. If the mix is dry, add few drops of milk and bring the dough together. Divide the dough into12 portions and roll them into balls. Don't press hard while rolling. Else the inner portion will not get cooked properly and later doesn't soak in the syrup well.
Heat oil in a kadai. Don't heat it to smoking point. When the oil is moderately hot, carefully drop the balls into the oil and fry the jamuns till golden brown in medium heat.
Meanwhile prepare the syrup by heating sugar and water. The syrup should be slightly sticky to touch. If you have saffron add it along with powdered cardamom and few drops of rose essence. I have the saffron cardamom syrup with me. So I used that. Adding saffron is purely optional.
Drop the fried jamuns in the warm syrup. You can add the drained jamuns directly to the syrup. After one hour, the jamuns must have soaked in the syrup and is ready to serve. You can chill and serve or serve warm with a side of vanilla ice cream.
