Dorbesh / Darbesh / Bundi Laddoo

Darbesh / dorbesh is one of those very few recipes which you can make at home easily without compromising with its taste!! Darbesh is more of the Bundi Laddu with some additional ingredients like cashews, melon seeds, raisins and khoya or mawa!! If you can fry the bundis in pure desi ghee then the taste is even better than the store bought...but with the rising price of ghee it’s always economical to replace oil with half of the quantity of ghee.

Darbesh / Dorbesh / Bundi Laddoo

Serves 8 - 10

Ingredients:

1 and ½ cup of Besan

2 cups of sugar

3 cups of water (to make the sugar syrup)

4-6 green cardamoms

A handful of raisins

1 cup of grated khoya or mawa

Some Chopped Pistachios to garnish

Oil to deep fry

1 tsp rose water

Yellow and red food colour

¼ cup of pure desi ghee

Method:

·        In a bowl take the besan and add ½ cup of water. Stir with a spoon to mix evenly and avoid making any lumps. Stir until you have a smooth mixture. The consistency of the batter should be thin yet pourable, thicker than the dosa batter. Keep this batter aside.

·        Put the sugar, green cardamoms and water in a saucepan and let it come to a boil on low to medium flame. Simmer the syrup until it has one thread consistency, i.e. when you check the stickiness of the syrup by pressing it in between your thumb and index finger, you will see a thread forming in between the fingers. Add rose water to the syrup and keep it aside.

·        Divide the batter into two bowls and mix a few drops of yellow and red food colour in each of them. Mix until finely incorporated.

·        Heat enough oil to deep fry in a kadai. Check the oil is ready or not by dropping a little of the batter into the oil. If the batter comes on top immediately without changing its colour, the oil is ready.

·         Now take a perforated ladle and pour some batter (of one colour) onto it and shake it to drop the batter fast into the oil. Fry the bundis for about a minute or until they appear cooked and then take them out of the kadai with another clean perforated ladle. Immediately soak them into sugar syrup.

·        Before frying another batch of bundis clean the perforated ladle to give the bundis nice round shape.

·        Follow this process until all the batter is finished.

·        In a bowl take the sugar syrup soaked bundis, raisins and grated mawa. Mix all the ingredients together with your hand.

·        Now grease your palms with some ghee and take a little of the bundi mixture in your greased palms. Give them a round shape by pressing them in between your palms. Sprinkle some chopped pistachios on top of the laddus after giving them the round shape.

·        Follow this process until all the bundis mixture in finished.

·        Keep them inside the refrigerator for half an hour to set.

·        Bring them to room temperature before serving.