Malpoa

Malpoa is a delicious sweet dish generally prepared on the occassion of Janmastami or any other Vaishnava festival, after all Lord K came from a family of milkmen and so milk based sweets must be big favourite for him !

But for us, any festival -- Durga Puja or Kali Puja -- is good enough. During the festive season my refrigerator is packed wth sweets of various kind. Relatives or friends whoever comes to visit brings lots of sweets. Ultimately all these sweets end up with unfinished packets of old pera or an odd number of sandesh pieces etc etc which no one wants to touch anymore. Finally the homemaker who is in charge of the kitchen has to do something with these residual sweets -- something other than throwing it away ! ... This is where the malpoa step in ... to rescue the left over sweets and turn them into something useful.

This malpoa recipe, that I have inherited from my mother is a true saviour for all the left over sweets in your fridge. You can use them for by mashing them all together and mixing with milk. But if you do not have these left over sweets then you can use the khoya and the cottage cheese of course.


Milk : 1/2 litre
Khoya : 50 gms
Cottage cheese : 25gms.
Sugar : 250gms.
Ghee : 3 tbsp.
Refined oil for frying
Semolina (suji) : 4tsp
Flour (maida) : 4tsp
Black Cardamom :(crushed)
Saunf (mouri) : 1tsp
Water for making sugar syrup (Chasni)




Boil milk to reduce to half its original volume. Add khoya, cottage cheese, flour, semolina, 1tbsp ghee and 1tsp sugar into the milk and mix thoroughly to make a consistent and smooth mixture. Sprinkle black cardamom powder and saunf into it. This is the malpoa mix.

Now heat refined oil and 1tbsp ghee in a nonstick pan and pour 1tbsp malpoa mix on it. Spread it around to form small, circular pancakes and fry then one or two at a time till the malpoa becomes golden brown and crispy.

Meanwhile make the sugar syrup by boiling 1 cup of water and dissolving 250 gms sugar in it. Add 1tbsp ghee in the sugar syrup. Keep aside.

Soak the fried malpoa in the thick sugar syrup, turn it upside down and arrange them in a platter.