This recipe is a result of my severe sweet cravings
during lockdown. At times in the evenings, I love to have a small serving of sweet Boondi with puffed rice. This drove me to the experimental spree and it turned out pretty well.
Makes enough for 4 small snack bowls
Ingredients 1 cup of Besan (chickpea flour)
1/4 tsp baking soda
Few drops of good edible red colour
1 tbsp oil +oil to deep fry
For sugar syrup :
1 cup of sugar dissolved in 1 cup of water with one whole green cardamom. Boil these together for five minutes and keep aside.
Procedure :
Mix besan with 4 tbsps of water. Water has to be added slowly and mix with a whisk. Add 1 tbsp oil, mix well, cover and keep it to rest.
After half an hour, remove the cover, add baking soda and mix well.
Take oil to deep fry in a deep dish and heat it to a moderate temperature. It should neither be very hot nor less hot. The theory is, as soon as you put the drops in oil it should start frying.
It hardly takes a minute or so for the drops to be ready to take them out from the oil.
The kitchen tool used for this is the same as the ones used to deep fry things. The steel ones with holes and is called jhanjhri or chaanta in bengal. It is available online and is known as boondi jhara.
As soon as the oil gets suitably hot, take a ladle of Besan batter and put it on the boondi jhara and hold it just on top of the wok and use back of a flat serving spoon to spread it, So that the small drops fall in the oil and starts to fry.
This whole process has to be done on medium flame. After one batch of frying is over, wash and wipe it dry the jhara to get ready for the next batch.
When the last two batches remain, add few drops of red colour and mix well in the batter. Repeat the same process and fry all. Keep it one bowl.
Now take the lukewarm sugar syrup and add all boondi together and let it soak for five minutes after which pour everything over a sieve and leave. Let the excess sugar syrup drain and now your sweet Boondi is ready. Store it in the fridge. It stays good for almost a month.
Aromas of My Kitchen 