Another syrup that’s made its way into a quasi-permanent slot in the fridge, next to the maple syrup and the ginger syrup. For those lucky few who have not yet met jaggery, are you in for a treat. It’s raw, unprocessed sugar, popular in India but also in Mexico, where it’s called panela.
I’ve been using jaggery for many years as a substitute for white-ass sugar; it’s really caramelly, almost like a crystallized dulce de leche, and is delightful just about anyplace where a slight, complex sweetener is called for. My only issue with it: it’s pretty sticky, and doesn’t melt as easily as, say, brown sugar (not a complaint, but still). So I thought: maybe I could capture that dulce de leche essence of it somehow in liquid form, and use it in ways that I use ginger syrup and maple syrup, i.e. in salad dressings, on pancakes, pan reductions, soups … anything that calls for a slightly sweet hit. Its gorgeous caramel color doesn’t hurt either!
Formula is dead-on simple: 1 part jaggery, 2 parts water. Simmer until you get the viscosity you like.
it’s really delightful stuff. Give it a shot, and tell us what you do with it!
About a dozen people wrote to me, asking where they can get jaggery. The answer is: your local Indian or Mexican market (in Spanish it’s known as panela).
Don’t have an Indian or Mexican market near you? You can buy it online for a reasonable price at
http://tinyurl.com/d36y9s
I love it. I loove it.
As soon as you said raw unprocessed sugar I started drooling.
I want some.
Dear Eric,
In Indai jaggery is also eaten as a digestive after meals–melt a bit over fire and put ginger,black pepper, cool, let it set and cut into bite size pieces.We also have it flavoured with anise.
An ice cream that I just love is–melt jaggery,caramelise it a bit and dribble it on Vanilla icecream and put coconut shavings.It’s to die for and attain Nitvana!
When I drive to my Himalayan home during the sugarcane season–oh, you have to see the Higway. All unimaginable vehicles are loaded with sugarcanes-I mean soo loaded that you cannot even see either the vehicle or the driver!Kids run along trying to pull them out as freebies.I STOP to drink this golden hot liquid.Tou can smell this tantalising caramel aroma in the air.The bulls at some places still go around crushing the sugarcanes and the juice is poured into huge unimaginable sized woks and boiled.Lovingly the farmer pours into into small terracotta cups.It’s soo earthy ,the warmth just envelops you.
These are Jaggery stories from India!!nimi.
Sorry for typing mistakes –it’s NIRVANA and not Nitvana.I also forgot to tell you that in winter’s we drink tea with jaggery.Another unusual thing comes to mind when once we were in SriLanka we saw heaps of Avocados being sold on the country road.I stopped and ate them right off the tress while my driver ate his with Jaggery>nimi
As I was searching on the benefits of honey, I read that to careful choosing for pure honey. Is it true dishonest people mix syrup jaggery into honey to make quick money..
You need to be very care full Now a days lot of fake honey is in the market originally coming from china and marketed as Nepal honey or say north east products. This honey may be purely synthetic not even jaggery. Recent news about Milk products contains melamine powder
suresh
Sad but true.yes.Some people sell cane syrup as honey.
we are manufacturer of jaggery and we make honey from jaggery syrup.And once u taste u ll realise.mail me for jaggery product [email protected]