Emarti/Jhangri and Happy Diwali

This time Diwali is on weekend and that means families have relaxed time to celebrate the festival of light and with full vigor. I do hope you all dear readers are having fabulous time with your dear and near ones. Wish you all a very happy, healthy and peaceful Diwali.
So with this festive spirit, I tried making emarti.Emarti/imarti as we know in north India or jhangris down in south India is made of lentil paste of urid dal.Although a close cousin of jalebis as both belong to same family, I mean the method of deep frying and then soaking up in sugar syrup is very similar but the batter or the paste which is required for both Indian donuts is not same. Here today it is jhangris or emarti recipe for you all and Diwali without sweets is incomplete.

There was a time, I never imagined myself making these sweets in home, I have always relied on store-bought sweets but living in abroad has taught me many things and gave me courage to try out many other sweets which we never would like to make in home as when sweet shops is in every corner of streets, who really like to sweat in kitchen, but trust me the thrill and excitement one endeavors can only be felt when one themselves try making these sweets in home and everything from scratch. They won’t turn out just like store-brought ones but still there is always a satisfaction that one has tried at least making in comfy of their home.

This Diwali from my kitchen to yours, here is emarti/jhangri recipe.
Emarti/Jhangri
Recipe requirements
(Measurements approx- makes 15-16 medium size)
1 large tea cup of urid dal
2-3 tbs of corn flour
2 and half cup of sugar
1 cup of water
2 tsp of cardamom powder
Two pinch of baking soda
2 cups of cooking oil for deep frying
Red/orange food color as required

Method
Soak urid dal/white lentil for 5-6 hrs in ample water. And if you don’t have that much of time, soak the dal/lentil in warm water for about 1-2 hrs or till they soak up the entire water. Wash the dal/lentil with several changes of water.
Now grind the lentil in heavy duty mixer/grinder adding water in between, just enough so that the blades rotate smoothly. We don’t want a runny paste, for this type of Indian donuts, we need light, fluffy and airy urid dal paste and if we will add more water it will spoil the game.
Now mix in corn flour, baking soda and most important red or orange food color to get the desired color of emarti/jhangri.Keep this batter rest for 1 hrs.
Now prepare the sugar syrup, add in water and then sugar, and let it simmer to get thick sugar syrup – two threads consistency sugar syrup. Once we get thick sugar syrup, add in cardamom powder. Now close saucepan once it’s all done.
Take an old sauce bottle or any other squeeze type bottle or even zip lock plastic. Now pour in the batter to the cleaned squeeze bottle and tap it well so that the batter drops in to the empty squeeze bottle...I have used an old honey squeeze in bottle which I have kept for this purpose.
Heat up a big fry pan, with ample space so that when emarti or jhangris are being deep fried, they can get space to be evenly fried.
Press the bottle and make shape of jhangris/emarti, let it fry at medium flame for about 4-5 mints or till they turn little dark. Take them out and dunk them in thick sugar syrup.

Coat all the emarti/jhangris well in sugar syrup and keep them in the syrup for about 8-10 mints. Take them out and store them in air-tight containers. Enjoy the jhangris/emarti this diwali and many more to come.

We also made some other Diwali goodies - Cashew peda, namkin, gulab jamun and of course jhangris.

And here some diya to eradicate the darkness that surrounds us.......

Wish you all a very Happy Diwali /Shubh Deepawali ........