RAWALPINDI: With summer just around the corner, residents of the city are flocking to sweet shops for jalebi dunked in cold milk.

Doodh jalebi is also popular in the winter, especially for those looking for a snack late at night, with the bazaars full of people nursing hot bowls of jalebi soaked in milk.

Downtown Rawalpindi is littered with sweet shops that have set up outdoors settings, with jalebi vendors stationed outside the shop, the shelves in their little makeshift counters lined with trays of the sweet and large pots of milk by their side.

If customers ask them to, the vendor will top off the bowl with a dollop of fresh cream that pairs well with the chewy jalebi and milk.

To make jalebi, fine wheat flour and yeast are first kneaded and then stuffed into an icing cone fashioned out of cloth. The batter is then deep-fried in the shape of rings.

Just a minute after it starts frying, the batter changes colour to yellow and then to a crisp, golden brown, which indicates that they are done.

The fried jalebis are soaked in sugar syrup for a while and then served, either hot or after they are allowed to rest for some time.

A resident of Chaklala Scheme III, Naeem Ahmed, says he treats himself to doodh jalebi often.

“My grandfather used to bring me to Bhabara Bazaar and we would both huddle together and enjoy the sweet, warm dish. He always said that having warm dhoodh and jalebi is a good way to stay warm in the cold,” he reminisced.

He said that his family loved having doodh jalebi in the winter and that it was better than processed, packaged sweets.

“Traditional sweets go well with the local weather and were made keeping in mind the requirements of the people in the area and what their nutrition needs were,” he said.

A resident of the city, Mohammad Raffique, who was waiting to be served his order of cold milk and jalebi, said: “My mother would send me to get yogurt when I was a little boy and I would spend the money on a bowl of doodh jalebi which would make her so angry with me,” he said.

The traditional dessert is also a favourite across the political divide.

PTI leader and former district nazim Raja Tariq Kiyani told Dawn he lived in Shakarparian in the 1960s, before the city of Islamabad as we know it today came to be and that his father would bring back jalebi after he was done with work.

“Only a few sweet shops would make jalebi and you could see large pots of milk in their shops as well, which would be empty by the end of the day,” he said.

“This is a traditional dish and no one can resist having a bit every now and then,” he added.

Former PML-N MNA Malik Shakil Awan says he would have the sweet with his friends when he lived on College Road.

“When I was younger, I would love to go get milk for the family, just so I could have doodh jalebi,” he said.

An owner of a sweet shop on Murree Road, Mohammad Umair, said the sweet is hardly ever garnished and that people prefer just having a serving of cream with their jalebi and milk.

A sweet shop owner in Kartarpura, Mohammad Javed, said people had a bowl in the shop while waiting for their take away order.

“Iron pots are used to store the milk because it is a widely held belief that milk stored in an iron container is healthier,” he said.

Published in Dawn, February 29th, 2016