Luqmat-al-qadi, Woman Canning, kalo jaam — this candy of many names is certainly one of my all-time favorite Indian desserts. You’ll discover it in all places: in Indian eating places overseas, in individuals’s houses, and within the tiniest of retailers throughout India. That is the gulab jamun: deep-fried balls product of milk powder, flour, butter, and cream (or milk), soaked in sugar syrup.
Considered one of my fondest childhood recollections, from after I was six or seven, is of attending my greatest pal’s birthday celebration. Alongside all the opposite dishes, there was at all times a big glass bowl of small, darkish brown gulab jamuns floating in heat syrup. I marvelled annually at the truth that her mom made them from scratch. They had been completely candy, comfortable, and nonetheless barely heat. To this present day, gulab jamun stays my favorite Indian dessert.
Gulab jamun is fashionable in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and far of the subcontinent. In 2019, it was even declared Pakistan’s nationwide dessert. The title itself loosely interprets to “rose fruit” — gulab that means rose, and jamun referring to the tart Java plum discovered throughout South Asia, which the candy resembles in form and color. The “rose” is also a nod to the syrup it’s soaked in, usually scented with rosewater.
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That rosewater is a clue to at least one potential origin story. Whereas there isn’t any definitive proof, many meals historians consider gulab jamun was launched to the subcontinent by Central Asian Turkish invaders. Others declare it was an unintentional creation by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan’s chef, although credible proof for that’s missing. What I’ve found is that the dessert is kind of just like the Arabic candy, luqmat-al-qadi, which was launched to India by the Mughal emperors.
Luqmat-al-qadi is paler in color and infrequently soaked in honey somewhat than sugar syrup. It dates again to at the least the thirteenth-century Abbasid caliphate, the place it seems in cookbooks like Kitab al-Tabeekh and accounts by historians comparable to Abd-al-Latif al-Baghdadi. Greek poet Callimachus even mentions deep-fried honey balls — served to winners of the traditional Olympic Video games — which sound strikingly comparable.
The tactic has barely modified: balls of dough fried in oil, then dipped in flavoured syrup, whether or not orange juice, rosewater, honey, or lemon. Variants seem throughout the area — the Iranian bamiyeh, the Turkish tulumba and lokma — every with its personal twist. In South Asia, Mughal cooks could have tailored these recipes with rosewater to swimsuit the new local weather, alongside different cooling flavours like khus.
Recipes fluctuate extensively. Some use yoghurt, some baking powder, some milk powder, and some Pakistani recipes even embrace an egg. Saffron and cardamom usually add depth to the sweetness. Shapes fluctuate too: spherical, doughnut-shaped, or oval. In Indian Meals: A Historic Companion (1994), meals historian Ok T Achaya describes them as “balls of chenna or khoya or paneer, kneaded utilizing maida, then deep fried until darkish brown, and gently boiled in sugar syrup, typically flavoured with rose essence”.
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Figuring out the method solely deepened my respect for my pal’s mom. First, khoya is made by stirring milk over a low flame till it solidifies. That is blended with flour, kneaded, formed, and deep-fried, then dipped in sugar syrup infused with cardamom, rosewater, or saffron. The shiny deep-brown color comes from the caramelisation of milk solids and sugar.
In Bengal, you’ll discover the black-hued kalo jaam — dough balls coated with sugar earlier than frying, giving them their darker color and firmer texture. Not like gulab jamun, it’s often served at room temperature. Bengal can be house to the pantua, an oval variant just like the langcha from Shaktigarh in West Bengal.
My favorite variant, nevertheless, is the ledikenni. Created for Woman Canning, spouse of Governor-Normal Charles Canning (1856–1862), it’s stated that she commissioned Bhim Chandra Nag to make a candy for her birthday. He created a hybrid of pantua and gulab jamun. Locals dubbed it ledikenni. Rectangular in form, infused with cardamom, and with a raisin at its centre, it’s distinct from the pantua.
Persian, Turkish, Greek, no matter its lineage, I might strongly suggest ending a meal with gulab jamun, pantua, kalo jaam, or ledikenni. Few sweets are product of such easy components but provide a lot gratification, every chunk steeped not solely in sugar syrup however in centuries of culinary historical past.
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