An Invitation to Indian Cooking - Madhur Jaffrey [113]
Heat oil for deep frying in wok, karhai, or any heavy-bottomed wide pot. You should have at least 3 inches of oil. Keep on low flame. The jamuns need to be fried slowly.
Put a jamun into the oil as a test. If it begins to brown immediately, your heat is too high. Each jamun should take 4 to 5 minutes to get a reddish brown color on all sides. If the first jamun does not turn out right, correct the heat. It is better to take this precaution than have a whole batch burn outside and stay raw inside.
Now put in 6 jamuns at a time. Turn them over as they turn reddish brown on one side. As they get fried, put them into the syrup in the pot. Bring this syrup to a boil. Let each batch simmer in the syrup for 5 minutes. When the jamuns are “syruped,” lift them out with a slotted spoon and place them in the fresh syrup in the serving bowl. Keep frying and “syruping” a batch at a time—as one batch fries, another can “syrup” until they are all done. When cool, cover serving bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate. The syrup in the pot can now be discarded.
To serve: Gulab jamuns can be served cold, at room temperature, or slightly warmed. Remember, you serve yourself only the gulab jamun, not the syrup in the bowl!
And, to end, would you care for a paan?
The guest has eaten well. Reluctantly, he heaves himself off a low divan and makes his way to the front door. Good-byes and see-you-soons are buzzing about his ears. Then the hostess descends upon him with yet another large silver tray. It is the final offering—one he just cannot refuse. It is the paan, or the betel leaf. He picks one up delicately with the tips of his right thumb and forefinger, opens his mouth wide, arches his body forward so it will not catch the staining spill, if any, and then stuffs the large paan into his mouth. He goes out into the moonlight licking his lips and chewing contentedly.
The paan has rounded off his meal as nothing else could and has left him with a feeling of immense and unique well-being. He is not alone in this. After a good meal, most Indians go hunting for a good paan. Paan and cigarette stalls dot all neighborhoods just as candy and cigarette shops do in America. Indians abroad ache for it and dream of the day when they will be back on home soil, where they can buy it around the corner. I recall once, while doing an Urdu radio program at the United Nations headquarters, a group of us Indians and Pakistanis were interrupted in our rehearsal by a Pakistani gentleman who had (hush) smuggled a solitary paan past the X-ray eyes of a New York customs inspector. (The betel leaf, being a green living thing, is not allowed into the country before thorough examination and, I suspect, quarantine! By that time the living thing is quite dead!) This gentleman came into the studio, waving the paan with a look of smug achievement. There was quiet for a second. Then, like wild demons, we all leaped upon him, snatched the paan, tore it into equal shreds, and devoured the scraps that fell to our lot. We were very ashamed and embarrassed afterwards as we handed the Pakistani gentleman his share, watched him eat it, straighten his tie, cough, and leave the studio without a word exchanged. There was no excuse except that it was unpremeditated! This is what a paan can do to Indians and Pakistanis! While paans are now available in England, they are still a rare—and illegal—sight in America.
What exactly is a paan, and is there a substitute that can be eaten? The paan leaf is heart-shaped, 4 to 5 inches in length, and varies in taste from sweet to slightly bitter. The two commonest types are the Benaresi leaf (small, tender, sweet, and yellowish green) and the desi leaf (large, crisp, slightly bitter, and dark green). A paan costs from a few cents up to $20 or $30, depending on what is wrapped inside it. At its simplest, this could be white lime paste, or choona; katechu paste, or kattha, a red paste made from the bark of a tree,