gkm wrote:
> Petra Hildebrandt wrote:
>
>> rupenrao wrote
>>
>>
>>> Hi all:
>>>
>>> This is a very famous indian sweeet, dipped in sugar syrup.
>>>
>>> http://www.rupenrao.com/recipe.asp?rid=168
>>
>>
>>
>> would you have a recipe not using bisquick? doesn't sound exactly
>> traditional to me, and even if something like Bisquick would be available
>> over here, I won't eat trans-fat hydrogenated fat stuff...
>>
>> Petra in Hamburg, Germany
>
>
> I have seen traditional halwai's (pastry chef's) make gulab jamun from
> scratch, and it is tedious.
>
> The most difficult part is reducing full fat milk till you are left with
> a paste of milk fats and solids. Some flour is used as a binding agent.
> I have seen this process take about 4 hours of stirring, and 5-6 litres
> of milk produce only about a couple of handful of the paste.
>
> One could add some flavourings into this.
>
> Then balls of the milk paste are deep fried in ghee. This is also tricky.
>
> After this is soaked in syrup made from honey in which pitachios,
> saffron, other nuts (as per taste) have already been steeped.
>
> Ideally, this confection should simply melt in your mouth. The fat
> should melt due to body temperature.
>
> I have seen restaurants in India that make this in house employ a person
> solely to prepare this.
>
> Preparations of Gulab Jamun from pre-mixes are common, but they really
> do not taste anything like ones made by halwais.
>
> ----

In India, you get the reduced milk product called khoa at many dairy
stores and most homes use this to make gulab jamun. The readymade mixes
are uniformly bad; but with the khoa, you just mix a little bit of
flour, knead into a soft dough, let rest for 10 minutes, make small
balls from the dough, deep fry in hot oil/ghee and soak in syrup to get
decent homemade gulab jamuns. In the US, one can make do by using full
fat powdered milk with a little bit of flour (usually 1/8 or less cup of
flour for a cup of milk powder) and use a little bit of cream to knead
the entire mixture to a soft dough. Some of my friends use cream cheese
+ milk powder + flour and those gulab jamuns are decent too. Of course,
nothing beats the ones freshly made at a halwai's.

- Kamala.