double-ka-meetha

One of Hyderabad specialities..

Tips:
1. Make sure you have enough oil, else you have to run to the grocery store in the middle like I did.
2. Make sure you have enough tissue to dab the bread with (to remove oil from).

Ingredients:
50 slices of bread
3 cups sugar
5-6 cups water
48 fl. oz. oil (about 1.5l oil)
1.5l milk
Ghee for roasting almonds, raisins, cashew

I obviously over-estimated the required amount. I made the above quantity for ~15 people, but I over-estimated it by about 3 times. Double-ka-meetha is rich in oil (or ghee if you fry the bread in ghee). So, it is roughly about 1 slice per head. Max- 2 slices per head should be good enough, I think.

1. The bread needs to be dry before frying. If you have the time, and the atmosphere is dry, you can leave the bread outside overnight. If not, slightly bake the bread in oven (for about a minute or two) while not roasting it too much. This will take some time as the oven can take only so many number of bread slices. Once the bread is dry, keep it aside.
2. Prepare the sugar syrup with 1:2 ratio of sugar to water. Mix sugar to water and heat till sugar melts and the syrup is clear. Add some elaichi powder to the syrup while it is hot.
3. The dried bread need to be deep-fried in oil. Bread absorbs lot of oil, so, make sure you have enough oil. Keep the oil in medium flame and dap the bread so that it burns evenly. Place the fried bread on tissue - wider the better so that the oil from each slice drains off easily.
4. Once all the slices have been deep-fried, try your best to get rid of the oil by dabbing the tissue (or any absorbent cloth) on the bread.
5. Take syrup in a wide bowl (split the syrup depending on the number of slices that will fit in the bowl), dip the fried bread in milk (cold is fine) for a few seconds and drop it into the syrup. Let the bread soak in syrup -- and the dessert is done.
6. Fry ghee until it melts. (Make sure it is not too hot lest the cashews and almonds will burn.) Throw in cashews, almonds and raisins and roast them until the cashews and almonds are slightly brown.
7. Garnish the double-ka-meetha prepared with cashews, almonds and raisins.

Time required (for 50 slices)
Drying: 75min
Making sugar syrup: 15min
Frying: 45min
Getting rid of oil: 30min
Dipping in milk: 45min
Garnishing: 30min

Total time of preparation: 4hrs

The dessert did not turn out to be a major success -- I think it was very oily, and not sweet enough. I am losing touch with cooking -- will have to try out the recipe with just baking the bread instead of deep-frying!