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February 20, 2012

Weekend Treat:A Sweet Indulgence

Gulab Jamuns, angoori gulab jamuns...


If cooking is an art, Gulab Jamun is nothing less than a Monalisa. Whenever you see it, you will feel good about it. Whatever mood you are in, you would like to have it. Wherever you are, you would love to taste it.

I have traveled many places in India and Abroad. Be it the India House in Chicago or Bar-be-Que Nation in Kolkata, this ever cheerful, round shaped, tipsy-topsy, dusky colored sweet delighted my desert counter with equal blush all the time. You might take it cold just-like-that, or you might plant it on top of good-old ice-cream. it will bring the joy with its sheer sweetness. I sometimes feel inevitable and let me tell you... some people, specially Bengalis' can't live without this. Rasgulla (Rosogolla in crude Bengali), are you feeling jealous?

Gulab Jamun is better known in West Bengal as "Pantua" or "Ledikini". But very few people know the real reason of this name of this sweet. India was under British rule that time, and the Viceroy that time had his wife visiting Kolkata. So, he ordered a local halwai to make a sweet for inviting and greeting his lady. The halwai invented a brown-colored, innocent-looking sweet to welcome her. The lady, wife of that time Viceroy, Lady Kenny delighted to taste it and later the same sweet was famous by her name and got distorted further to "Ledikini". Interesting story... eh?

So, with a lot of fondness to this sweet in my 27 years of womanhood, I felt like rejuvenating it by cooking, after a long time, in my own way, with a cliche disclaimer: the ingredients are incredibly common. Here comes some mouthwatering (of course my husband's) snaps of the temptation of one evening. Everyone, enjoy.


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