Imarti

Imarti is a delicious crispy festive sweet. In Bengali we call it amriti. A surely awesome sweet to be served to add to the colors of holi.
Bright colors, water balloons, lavish sweets and melodious songs are the ingredients of perfect Holi. Wish you a very happy and wonderful Holi.

Preparation time: 2 hour
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Serves 4 to 5

Ingredients :
1 cup Split black gram skinless (dhuli urad dal)
1/4 cup Rice 
1/2 tsp or as required Edible orange red colour 
5 cups Sugar 
2 pinch Saffron (kesar) 
1 teaspoon Green cardamom powder  
for deep frying ghee/ oil

Methods OF Cooking: 

Soak dal and rice together for about an 2 hour. Drain and grind with the colour to a soft, spongy mixture but a coarse texture. The batter should be semi thick. Boil sugar with two and a half cups of water till a syrup of single-thread consistency. Remove from heat and strain the syrup. Add saffron, green cardamom powder. Keep the syrup hot. Heat sufficient ghee or oil in a shallow flatkadai (wok). Take one ladle full of batter in the imarti cloth or press, hold tightly and press the batter through the hole into the hot oil. For the traditional design, make a small circle around which make another circle and over these two make scallops in anti-clockwise direction ending at the starting point. Make small batches and deep fry on both the sides till crisp and golden. Drain the hot imarti and dip into the sugar syrup. Let them remain immersed till they have absorbed enough syrup. Drain and place the imarti on a flat plate. Repeat this process till all the batter is used up. Serve hot.

Happy Cooking!