SWEET POTATO MALPUA

With the occasion of Holi around, I kept the curries aside and wished to share with you all some homemade sweets and shakes.... essentially Indian. In our family, we do not play Holi, but I keep some special prayer for my Laddu Gopal [younger avatar of Lord Krishna]. It is a an auspicious and fun filled day for us, India gets more colourful. Lord Krishna started playing Holi with his lady love Radha and the rest of India follow the tradition till date. 

Holi is also about celebrating the spring. The beautiful colours of nature during this period is brought alive ..... we play with the colours with our loved ones. My wish to visit two places during Holi is yet to be fulfilled.... Vrindavan and Shantiniketan. The former celebrates Krishna's love for Radha and the later, colours of spring.

WHAT IS SWEET POTATO MALPUA OR RANGA ALOOR MALPOA?

It is a little tweaked version of the popular Indian pancake, eggless. Many homes dunk it in sugar syrup before serving, my family does not! This variant of doing it with sweet potatoes is not common. We usually prepare a couple of sweet meats / snacks / pithe with sweet potatoes. I thought let me try malpua with sweet potatoes, hence this. The sweet potato malpua I prepared are perfect for your dessert cravings, just indulge guilt free, we are not having it everyday. Let us enjoy doing together SWEET POTATO MALPUA.

INGREDIENTS : [for the malpua]

Sweet Potato : 3medium
Refined Flour : 1small cup
Semolina : 1small cup
Rice Flour : 1/4small cup
Sugar : 1/4small cup
Milk : 1big cup [boiled to a medium thickened consistency]
Water : 1medium cup
Fennel Seeds : 2tbsp
Black Peppercorns : 1tbsp [optional]
Oil : 100-150ml + 1tsp

METHOD :

Peel, wash and boil the sweet potatoes. Once cool, mash them nicely.

In a big bowl soak the semolina in the water for an hour. Add the mashed sweet potatoes, refined flour, rice flour, 1tsp oil and the milk. Mix well. There should not be any lump present.

Add the sugar, black peppercorns and fennel seeds. Keep in rest for an hour, let the sugar to melt. The consistency of the batter should not be running, neither be a paste. A dropping consistency rather. It looks as below.

Heat the oil in a wok. Bring it to the smoking point and then lessen it to minimum, after a minute we will fry the first malpua; we will use a round ladle to pour the batter. The heat has to be adjusted from time to time. Look at the picture below.

Take out and place onto tissue papers for sometime before serving. It tastes wow, both fresh and stale! After frying, you can further add it to a sugar syrup, we do not!