Jaggery Jamun

• Add the mawa, maida, baking soda, and half the cardamom powder in a bowl and mix them well with some water. Knead the mawa mixture into a smooth dough and keep it aside.
• Place a deep bottomed pan on medium heat and add the jaggery, the remaining cardamom powder, and water and simmer.
• Keep stirring the jaggery and cardamom mixture well so that the jaggery completely dissolves in the water.
• Make the jaggery and cardamom mixture thick and gooey in texture, but don’t burn it.
• Turn off the heat once the jaggery syrup is done. Knead the previously made mawa dough one last time.
• Make bite-sized balls from the mawa dough by rolling it between your palms.
• Heat a non-stick kadai, adding some ghee keeping the flame medium.
• Drop the mawa balls into the ghee once it is hot enough and fry them until golden brown.
• Remove the fried mawa balls and place them on a tissue paper to soak the extra ghee.
• Immerse the mawa balls in the jaggery syrup. Sprinkle the fried dry fruits on top of the mawa balls dipped in jaggery syrup.

You can use any vegetable oil to fry the dough instead of ghee. However, frying it in ghee enhances its flavor and taste considerably. Adding the dry fruits is also optional. The dry fruits help in adding a texture to the dish.

Trivia

Traditional ‘Gulab Jamuns’ are soaked in sugar melted in rose water syrup. Legend has it that ‘Gulab Jamuns’ were an accidental creation by the personal chef of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan. Its story of origin dates further back to the Turkic invasion of India in the middle ages. It has several variants one of which is called ‘Ledikeni’ or ‘Lady Kenny’ in Bengal. It is named after Lady Canning, the wife of the then Governor-General of India, Lord Charles Canning. It was prepared in her honor during her stay in Calcutta (present-day Kolkata) in the mid-19^th Century by the famous confectionary establishment Bhim Chandra Nag, which still stands tall today in the city.