Kitchen Dictionary: jaggery

Jaggery is a "natural" sweetener made by the concentration of sugar cane juice. It is a dark, coarse unrefined sugar. Jaggery, which accounts for 50 percent of the sugar eaten in India, is processed by a method not unlike that used to make maple syrup. The sweet sap from the sugarcane is boiled down to a thick syrup and the finished product has a distinctive sweet winey fragrance and taste. Jaggery comes in several forms the most popular being a soft honey-butter texture and a solid cake-like form. Used primarily in India, where many categorize sugar made from sugar cane as jaggery and that processed from palm trees as gur.

Ethnicity: Indian Ingredient

Season: available year-round