Jalebi

Sunday morning, a lane outside a temple, and a man is drawing spirals into a wide iron kadhai from a cloth full of batter. Each one turns gold in a minute, gets flipped, then dropped into syrup for half a minute and lifted out dripping. He hands you two on a torn square of paper with a kulhad of milk. The first bite cracks loudly, and then warm syrup fills your mouth. Ten minutes later they are still good, but not like that.

Halwais fry jalebi in ghee, and there is no substitute for it here. Gir Cow's A2 Ghee gives the coil a clean crackle and a smell that hits you before the sugar does. It also lets you use the two-temperature fry that jalebi needs, gentle first to set the spiral, hotter to crisp it, without the fat breaking down. Ours is made the bilona way from Gir cow milk.

The rule most home cooks get wrong is the syrup. It must be only warm, never boiling, and it must sit just short of one-thread consistency. Hot syrup soaks straight through the jalebi and it goes limp in your hand. Forty seconds in warm syrup is enough, twenty seconds each side.

How to make it

1. Whisk the maida, besan, turmeric and curd with 1/2 cup water into a thick, smooth, lump-free batter. Lift the whisk: it should fall in a ribbon that sits on the surface for about 2 seconds before sinking. Cover and leave in a warm corner for 10 to 12 hours, or overnight.
2. Next morning the batter will have small bubbles and smell faintly sour. Whisk it hard for 2 minutes in one direction to bring air in. Adjust with a spoon of water or maida to get the ribbon consistency back.
3. Boil the sugar with 1/2 cup water for 5 to 7 minutes to just short of one-thread: a cooled drop between thumb and finger should be very sticky and almost pull a thread before breaking. Add the lemon juice, cardamom and saffron. Keep it warm, around the heat of a hot cup of tea.
4. Fill a squeeze bottle, or a piping bag, or a clean cloth with a small hole cut in one corner. A ketchup bottle works perfectly well.
5. Heat the ghee in a wide, shallow pan to about 150C, medium-low. A drop of batter should rise steadily without browning at once.
6. Squeeze the batter in tight spirals, working from the centre outwards, three or four rounds each. Make 4 or 5 at a time. Fry 1 to 2 minutes, flip with tongs, and fry the other side.
7. Raise the heat slightly for the last 30 to 45 seconds until both sides are deep gold and firm. Lift, drain for 3 seconds, and drop straight into the warm syrup.
8. Turn once and take them out after 40 seconds, 20 seconds a side. Rest on a rack, not a plate, so the underside stays crisp. Scatter pistachios and eat within ten minutes.

Tips

• In a hurry? Skip the fermentation: use 1/2 cup curd instead of 2 tbsp, add 1 tbsp cornflour, and stir in 1/2 tsp eno or baking soda right before frying. It is a good jalebi, just not quite the same sour note.
• We do not sell saffron. Buy real long-strand kesar and crush it into the warm syrup. Skip it rather than using orange food colour, which adds nothing but colour.
• If your jalebi went soggy, the syrup was too hot or they sat in it too long. Warm syrup, 40 seconds, no more.
• If they came out flat and thin, the batter was too loose. Whisk in a spoon of maida and test one before committing the batch.
• Storage: jalebi are a same-day sweet. They keep a day in an airtight box and revive for a few minutes in a 160C oven, but nothing brings back that first crackle.