A traditional sweet dish found in Indian subcontinent and made on special celebrations like Eid. In this Malido recipe, you can learn how to make it step by step from scratch or with a beginners shortcut semi homemade way!
Malido is a traditional dessert found in many parts of the Indian Subcontinent. It is typically made of wheat flour, sweetened sometimes with powdered sugar or Jaggery (Gurd). It is served at happy occasions and special religious celebrations as well as used for offerings; popular in Bohri and Parsi cuisine. In this blog you will find 2 recipes to make Malido, one from scratch and another with a shortcut for beginners; either way its a delicious dessert to try.
As a Bohri, I grew up enjoying this dish often especially on Eid -ul-Adha when it is served alongside a savory goat meat curry. Instead of roti the Malido is used to eat with the curry; a playful balance of sweet and savory flavors all in the same bite! Reminds me of my sister who mixes it up and devours it. I prefer to sweeten the dish using Gud which gives it a lovely deep brown color as well as a great flavor. It is such a satisfying sweet dish.
Yes it does take some work, but with the beginners shortcut you can try it today. Simply avoid the entire step of making muthias and substitute with ready made roti, chapatti, or even wheat parathas instead!
Makes: 4 servings
Time: 1 hour
Ingredients for Muthia (if making from scratch):
- 1 1/4 cups of Wheat Flour
- 1/4 cup Soji (semolina)
- 1/8 cup warm whole milk
- 1 tbsp milk powder
- 2 tbsp melted ghee
- 1 egg
- Oil for frying
- 7 medium sized ready made cooked roti, chappati, Phulka, or wheat Paratha (don’t use ones made of white flour).
Other ingredients needed:
- 2 tbsp melted ghee
- 1/4 cup water
- 3/4 cup gur (Jaggery)
- 1 tbsp heavy cream/table cream
- 1/4 cup Evaporated milk
- 1/2 tsp Cardamom powder (elaichi)
- Pinch of Saffron
- 1/4 cup mava (khoya) grated
- 1/2 cup slivered almonds (no skins)
- 2 tbsp golden raisins
- Optional: 1 tbsp raw edible Gum (gundar)
- Oil for frying
- In a bowl, mix together wheat flour, soji, warm milk, milk powder, 2 tbsp ghee, 1 egg into a dough.
- Divide them into small portions and roll them into an oval muthia shape with your finger imprints. Do not worry about the shape and size, they will be ground up later.
- In a small frying pan, heat up oil on Medium heat. Fill only half way up the pan. Gently drop in the muthias and fry till browned about 5 mins on both sides like in the picture below. Because of the egg in the dough, there will be foam forming as you fry, this is normal.
- Pull out on paper towel and let them cool.
- Take the Muthia’s or the roti’s if using the shortcut, whichever you are using – using a food processor, grind them to a powder like a bread crumb texture and size. It does not have to be a fine powder but not chunky either, see picture below. Set aside.
- In a small pan, add gundar and some oil and turn on heat to medium high. Fry the gundar till it puffs up like popcorn, remove on paper towel. You do not need to brown them, remove as soon as they puff up. You can grind them up if you like smaller pieces, or leave them whole as is in the final dish.
- In the same pan, add and fry up the raisins, remove as soon as they puff up. No need to color them.
- In a pot, add water, gur on medium heat to melt. once fully melted turn off the heat. Add Cream and evaporated milk and stir in well.
- In a large bowl, add the ground mixture, add nuts, fried raisins, fried gundar, saffron, 2 tbsp melted ghee, and grated mava.
- Using a spoon, a little at a time of the hot gur syrup to the mixture. Taste as you go till the sweetness you like. At this step you can add less if you like it less sweet. Add all of the syrup for a medium sweet taste. Stir well to incorporate all the liquid and dry mixture together. The golden colored mixture will start turning brown with the addition of gur to start resembling Malido color. It will also depend on the color of the gur, some are light, some are darker.
- In a nonstick pan, on Low heat, cook the mixture, stirring it for 10 mins. The texture should be crumbly yet moist enough to make a niwala.
- Garnish with nuts and ready to serve warm.
Tips:
- Use small pan and little oil to fry the muthia’s. because of the egg, the oil will have “foam” in it and cannot be reused.
- The trick to frying gundar is to add it in a cold pan with cold oil, then turn on the heat. This lets the gundar cook from the inside out evenly. If you add gundar to hot oil, it puffs up and burns the outside and leaves a hard spot in the middle that can be hard to eat sticks to the teeth.
- Be sure the gur is in hot or warm liquid syrup form when mixing into the crumb mixture. If it is cold and hardened, melt again before mixing in.
- Some people like khas khas (poppy seeds) in Malido. You can simply toast 2 tbsp in a dry pan till they pop and turn a light brown and add to the mixture at the end.
- This recipe is a great way to use leftover dried up hard roti’s! Depending on what size your roti is, you will need to adjust the ratio of gur syrup for it, so add little at a time and taste as you go. If it gets too sweet, no worries, grind up some more rotis and add to it till you get the right sweetness per your taste.
- Malido freezes really well in an airtight container. Be sure to sprinkle some milk when reheating incase it feels a bit dried up and crumbly.
- For other simple dessert ideas, check out more recipes in the Sweets Section.