MALEEDA

Maleeda is a popular sweet dish in the North Arcot district of Tamil Nadu. It is a special sweet often made during Muslim weddings. The method of making Maleeda is very simple but time consuming process. So it is usually prepared 2 or 3 days before a wedding.

Ingredients

1 cup wheat flour

Water

1 cup sugar (or as required)

½ cup chopped almonds and cashewnuts

4 tbsp ghee

Oil for frying

Method

• Take wheat flour in a bowl. Add water little by little and knead to form a dough (just like a chapathi dough)
• Now roll out small pooris using the dough and arrange them on a clean white cloth.
• Allow this to dry in shade for atleast 20 hours.
• By then the pooris would have hardened.
• Now break each into 4 pieces and heat oil in a pan.
• When oil is hot, deep fry the pooris till they are golden brown in colour.
• Allow the pooris to cool down completely, and gently crush them with your hands or a dosa ladle.
• Grind this in small batches to a powder.
• Use a large holed sieve to filter the powder so that it is smooth. I use my colander to sieve the powder.
• Once ready, take the powder in a large bowl and add sugar to this and mix well.
• Add more sugar if you want it to be more sweet.
• Heat ghee in a pan and add the chopped almonds. Saute till golden. Add this diretly to the maleeda and mix well.
• In the same way, you can sauté the cashews till golden and add this as well.
• Mix all the ingredients well and transfer to small air tight containers.
• Maleeda stays fresh for about 10 days and you can have it with a spoon whenever you get hunger pangs.