Food in Rajasthan, particularly in Jodhpur, is an integral part of the culture and tends to be as rich as the royal aura around Rajasthan. What you serve your guests can communicate how you feel about them and what you want to tell them about yourselves. And meals start and end with the same thing - mithai. Sweets of all sorts, but especially those made in asli ghee or laden with rich, delicious almonds, are the centerpiece of any jeeman, i.e. feast. And what better place to taste the best mithai, than at a wedding.
We attended a wedding in Jodhpur recently and were blown away by the most incredible sweets at every meal. An uncle introduced us to the halwai running the show for every meal of the three day event and the halwai was generous enough to share some recipes with us.
Here’s a recipe for delicious, crisp and absolutely moreish malpua. These lovely little pancake like darlings are made with rabri (unsweetened condensed milk) and fried in ghee (clarified butter) and just writing about them makes us hungry for them. Here’s the recipe, straight from the halwai.
Malpua
Ingredients
For the batter:
1 kg rabri (reduce 4 liters of milk to make about 1.25 kgs of rabri)
100 gm Flour
5 gm Sugar
100 gm Mixed nut (Almonds, Pistachio)
1 tbs ground Cardomom
Ghee for frying