Jalebi is a deep fried sweet made from maida flour and then soaked in syrup. It is bright orange or yellow in colour and can be served warm or cold. It has a chewy texture with crystallized sugary exterior coating. The sugars get partly fermented which adds flavor to the dish.




About Jalebi:

Jalebi, or Jilawii (and sometimes Jalibi) is a sweet popular in countries of the South Asian Subcontinent such as India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bangladesh,many countries in the Middle East and North Africa, like Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria. As well as several East African countries such as Zanzibar, Comoros and Mayotte. It is made by deep-frying a wheat flour (maida flour) batter in pretzel or circular shapes, which are then soaked in sugar syrup. They are particularly popular in the subcontinent during Ramadan.
The sweets are served warm or cold. They have a somewhat chewy texture with a crystallized sugary exterior coating. Citric acid or lime juice is sometimes added to the syrup, as well as rose water or other flavours, such as kewra water.
Similar sweets are imarti (Bengali: omriti), which is red-orange tangerine in color and sweeter in taste, and angoor aana which is grape-green; unlike jalebi, these are made from the batter of urad lentil. They are made in North Indian states including Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal. A variant chhena jalebi (Bengali: omrimiti), made with chhena, is popular in parts of West Bengal, Rajasthan, and Orissa; the form can differ significantly from place to place.
In India, jalebi is served as the "Celebration Sweet of India", popular during national holidays like Independence Day and Republic Day, on which it is supplied in government offices, defence facilities, and other organisations. Similarly, jalebi is one of the most popular sweets inPakistan. It is used as a remedy for headaches in some parts of Pakistan, where it is placed in boiling milk and left to stand before eating.

History:

The origins of Jalebi can be traced to ancient India, where it was produced from fermented wheat and dahi (yoghurt) batter, and called kundalika or jal-vallika (jal means watery, vallika means crescent-shaped).In later dialects of Sanskrit, Jal-vallika became Jalebi which likely arrived in the middle east during Muslim rule, through cultural diffusion and trade from the Indian subcontinent, and its local name jalebi became zalebi as s is more common in Middle-Eastern languages.
The sweet is also known as Zalabia in Comoros Islands and Zanzibar, where it is thought to have been introduced by Middle Eastern settlers and traders.
The earliest written references to the sweet are found in a 13th-century cookbook by Muhammad bin Hasan al-Baghdadi. In Iran, where it is known as zulbia, the sweet was traditionally given to the poor during Ramadan.
In the early 1900s, jalebi was used to hold ice cream. This idea was made by Ernest A Hamwi. Jalebi was a treat for an American family, until the invention of cones.
One of the earliest known Indian references for the sweet exists in a Jain work — Priyamkarnrpakatha — by Jinasura, apparently composed in AD 1450. This work was subsequently cited in cookery books published in later centuries including the 17th-century classic Bhojan-kutuhala by Raghunatha.


Ingredients:

Water - as needed
Sugar -1 Cup
Saffron Color - pinch
Oil - 1 Tablespoons
 Sour Curd - 1 cup (or) Yeast - 1/4 tsp
Cornflour - 30 Grams
Maida - 100 Grams
Lemon Juice- 1 Teaspoons
Oil - for frying

Method:

Mix yeast in warm water - around 103 degree farenheit (not hot water,yeast will die in hot water) add a teaspoon of sugar and wait till the yeast gets frothy...
Take a bowl sieve maida,cornflour mix well the nadd yeast mixture and water as needed to avoid lumps then add food colour,and mix again.Batter should be pouring consistency set aside in a warm area(inside your oven with lights only on,don't switch on the oven..or in your  counter top where its warm due to cooking) till  it ferments and batter double the volume...

If using curd instead of yeast ,use sour curd and ferment it for 24 hrs on the kitchen counter...
Take a bowl add sugar,water to make sugar syrup of 1 thread consistency add lime juice few drops in the syrup and keep it a side.Lemon juice is to prevent crystallization so just few dropsHeat oil to fry jalebi, take a Ziploc bag make a hole and pour the batter so that it can pass through.press the batter in the hot oil fry at a very low flame till golden brown colour.
Remove from the oil drain the oil, immediately dip in the sugar syrup for a min and remove in a plate. Serve hot