My Culinary Trial Room

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

A day 4 my brother & a sweet for him

I know that this post is coming out late. But I was running around haphazardly last week since my mom and dad had come down for their week long vacation and we were chit chatting leisurely about food, new recipes, gossips from home-town, things happening in the family, about the next-door kid and anything that popped into our mind. We even talked about the new stray dog in our colony. Just see how we had idled around. We talked, cooked, went shopping, roamed around, went for a cup of hot chocolate though we had a home-made cup the previous day, chatted online with my bro late into the night(thanks to FB and Skype). We took a day off from cooking and huss dear got us a big bucket chicken from KFC and we just munched on wishing that it would have been nice if bro had been there... I made her dishes that I had learnt in the past few months (her favie being the tri-colored bajjis - she is a bajji freak), she made me my favorite her-signature recipes and we had a blast cooking. I showed her my blog and she loved it - my clicks, recipes and ur comments, everything.

So now to this one. Though my bro lives across the globe, I wanted to give him atleast a visual treat and hence made a sweet and arranged for a pooja thali with some help from mom. So this post is for you, bro.

About the sweet we made. It is a simple famous Indian sweet but with a foreign twist. Local gulab jamuns stuffed with nutella and coated with dessicated coconut. The result, a richer one in hand. Everyone was impressed with the outcome and this goes into my to-do list for diwali but in a larger batch.

The ooey gooey nutella together with the juicy jamuns and the lingering coconut-y flavor is an awesome taste for the palate.

Makes - 10(small) / 7(medium)
~*What U Need*~
Gulab Jamun Mix - 1 cup
Water - as needed
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Water - 1/4 cup +1 tbsp

Frozen Nutella - 2 tbsp
Oil - for frying
Dessicated coconut - 4 tbsp

How I made it:
First mix the sugar and water and boil till the sugar completely dissolves and you get a sticky consistency. Set aside
Make the gulab jamun dough into a smooth dough adding water little by little as per the package instructions. Donot overwork on the mixture. Pinch small amounts from this dough and roll them gently till you get a smooth finish. Now flatten it in the center of your palm, place some amount of nutella (as much as the ball can hold), close it as you do a modhagam / kozhukattai, and roll it again gently. Fry immediately in oil till evenly golden brown and dump it in the sugar syrup.
After some 15 or 20 mins, the balls would have puffed up significantly and would be juicy. Remove the balls and immediately roll them in dessicated coconut till they are coated evenly. Donot give it a firm roll but gently roll them around. Top with chopped and toasted nuts.

Dry jamuns with nutella stuffing is ready!!!

My Notes:
* Donot refrigerate the jamuns or sugar syrup would become firm and this will reduce the taste.
* You can stuff anything chocolate chips / nuts / dessicated coconut-condensed milk mixture. Innovate and have fun with the stuffing.
* You can roll the jamuns in powdered nuts mixture to get a nutty flavor. Toast ur nuts (pistas+almonds+cashews) and then powder them coarsely. Then give the jamuns a roll in this powder.

A peek-a-boo into my Rakhi pooja thali... I had put in some almonds & cashews, a diya, kumkum aarthi, some betel leaves, a banana and THE RAKHI.