Winters and Gulab Jamuns

When it comes to sweet, visuals of extreme sweet strike me. I begin thinking of sweet all around, sweet lunch, sweet breakfast, sweet dinner, sweet skies and that irritates me and I have this feeling, “Yikes! That’s too much sweet!”

And this holds true for all the sweets, I can’t have more than one, maximum two. But when it comes to Winters, it reverses. Just like Jammu becomes the winter capital, I become the sweet glutton. I actually start enjoying the sweet delicacies. Gajar ka halwa or Gajrella is one of the two sweets I thoroughly enjoy. The other one is of course Hot Gulab Jamuns. Please note that the word hot is important. If not, you can’t enjoy it.

Winters are Jammu are real. These aren’t like Mumbai (Mumbai folks still believe that they survive the ‘chilly’ Mumbai winter. There there). In Jammu, this time the temperature touched as low as 1°c. Hence, more Gulab Jamuns.

My definition of a Gulab jamun is that It must be sweet but not sweet to death. It must be soft inside. Firm but not soggy. If possible hide an almond or a raisin inside it (Umm surprise!). Lastly, have a little bit of chashni around it.

Over the course of last three months or so, I tried Gulab Jamuns at various places here. Some of the note worthy are Mahajan Sweets, Pahalwans and Prem Sweets. To my disappointment, Prem wasn’t the best of all (Its Patisa is) and to my surprise and palate, Pahalwan was the best among the three. I am still searching for the best one, the one that blows my mind. But I hope that it arrives soon because winters don’t stay long nor does my sweet tooth.