Recipe: Give Spanish and Portuguese cuisine a desi twist with Jalebi Churros

Made from deep-fried unsweetened dough and sprinkled with sugar, churros are a popular snack from Spanish and Portuguese cuisine that made their way to Mexico and other former Spanish colonies and settlements. Coated in sugar, churros are best served with a thick dipping chocolate but are you even Indian if you don't give a desi touch to all cuisines?

So, this weekend we are swapping chocolate dip with rabri as we whip up some jalebi churros. Jalebi is the crisp and sweet Indian comfort food that is made of fried fermented dough in pretzel or circular shapes and soaked in sugar syrup. 

This popular sweet snack is also known as jilapi, jilebi, jilipi, zulbia, jerry, mushabak or zalabia. The thought of piping hot jalebis and imartis served with rabri already got us drooling but save that regular dessert for winter weddings and flaunt your culinary skills to guests at home with this lipsmacking recipe of Jalebi Churros.

Ingredients for rabri:

Full cream milk-100 ml

Khoya- 30 gm

Saffron- 5-6 strain

Sugar- 2 tbsp

Ingredients for churros:

Refined flour- 40gm

Water- 45 ml

Butter-15 gm

Vanilla essences -2 drops

Sugar-10 gm

Egg-1

Ingredients for garnish:

Dry nuts

Cinnamon sugar

Method for rabri: 

Take a pan and add full cream milk into it. Afterwards add saffron, sugar, khoya and reduce till 1/4 of mixture is left.

Method for churros:

Take a sauce pan and add water, alongside butter, sugar, vanilla essence. Later boil it and add refined flour to make dough. Lastly add egg and mix it well.

Make churros with the help of a piping bag and set it in the fridge. Fry churros till golden brown then place it on a plate. 

Sprinkle some cinnamon sugar, put in rabri and garnish with chopped dry nuts.

(Recipe: Chef Ashish Singh, Dhansoo Cafe)

If there is one good that emerged out of Covid-19 lockdown, it was the polishing of our kitchen skills as we went from baking our own bread (read banana bread) to trying our hands on Dalgona coffee and even complex main course meals since ordering from outside was out of question. As the pandemic continues to rage outside, we decided to straighten out chef hat again and whip up some jalebi churros to satiate our weekend sugar cravings at home.