Rita’s Malido

Rita’s Malido

Ingredients

8  Cups Whole wheat flour

550 Gram Evaporated dry milk powder (or 250 grams of mavo aka khoya)

1 kg 350 g castor sugar

1 Cup  Milk approx

7 Eggs  beaten

1 Cup  Pistachio

1 Cup  Blanched almonds  slivered

1/2 Cup  Sultanas (Raisins)

2 tsp powdered cardamoms and nutmeg

Rosewater to taste

1 tsp Salt

1 1/4 Kg Ghee approx

Method:

Mix flour, salt, milk and 3-4 tbsp ghee and bind.

Knead and roll into rotlis.

Shallow fry in a little of the measured ghee.

Cool and break into fine pieces, like rough semolina.

Make thin syrup with sugar and a little water.

Cool and add eggs, mavo and broken pieces of fried rotlis.

Add remaining ghee and cook on a low fire, till ghee rises to top.

Remove this ghee if desired. I would!

Cool and add rosewater.

Sprinkle with nuts, sultanas and cardamom and nutmeg mixture, and cherries.

Serve malido warm and garnished with fried almonds/raisins/cashews. Some folks add cherries as well. Enjoy!

The Baj Malido is accompanied with some fruits like Bananas, Apples and Dates. Papri is a unleavened bread that accompanies this.

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Malido and Malida – Zoroastrian Parsi and Bene Israel Jewish traditionsMalido-Papdi; the Parsi ritual Chasni offeringMalido is a sweet dish made by Parsis, made from wheat flour-semolina, milk, ghee, sugar, almonds or charoli nuts, cashews, raisins, pistachios, and cardamom and rose water. It is traditionally eaten by a family on a day of “muktad”, a day of remembering family members who have passed away. There are designated days in the year prior to Pateti to offer prayers for the departed, and loved ones who are gone are also remembered and commemorated on their death anniversaries. The papdi is a flat sweetened fried wheat bread eaten with the malido. The papdi-malido along with other fresh fruit offerings – the “Chasni”, is placed before the altar and receives prayers of blessings in the names of those who are departed. After they have been so consecrated and blessed, the fruits and the papdi-malido are eaten and shared by the family members in loving and sweet memory of their loved ones. In lieu of the papdi, a daran, a roasted rather than fried wheat bread may be eaten with the malido.

Malida and the Bene Israel Jews of IndiaIt is interesting that the Bene Israeli Jews in India also have a sweet dish called “malida” they eat on special occasions in the year when they remember loved ones who have passed on in a very similar ritual, and Muslims in India also have their version of malida.The Bene Israel tradition is that on special occasions, for giving thanks and receiving blessings, they prepare the ‘malida’ – a sweet dish made from poha, sugar raisins, dates, almonds, cardamom and nutmeg pistachios and recite the prayer song “Eliyahu Hanavi”, followed by a collection of blessings from the Torah. The malida is filled on a large plate in a mound, and is decorated with a rose flower in the center. A few fragrant flowers and a selection of fruits – typically at least five different fruits, but always an odd number – is arranged around the rim, on top of the malida. The decorated plate is placed on top of a folded white shirt, one which belonged to a late family elder who has passed away, and placed on the table. Everyone seats themselves around the table, and the ‘Eliyahu Hanavi’ (a famous Hebrew song, an entreaty to prophet Elijah), begins, with the offerings made to the prophet. After the conclusion of the blessings, ‘Ha-malach ha-go’el’ is recited thrice, followed by the recitation of Psalm 121. After the prayers, a few of each of the flowers and fruits are placed with the malida and taken out and mixed into those which were kept aside for serving, and the family shares in partaking of the malida and fruit.There were ancient connections between the Jews and Persians since ancient times that may account for similar traditions. Jewish Queen Haddasah or Esther in the Old Testament of the Bible was married to the Zoroastrian Persian Emperor Xerxes I of the Achamaenid dynasty, and the Persian Empire once stretched further west than Jerusalem into Egypt. The accession of Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid Empire in 559 BCE and his defeating the Babylonians who had previously destroyed the First Temple of the Jews made the re-establishment of the city of Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the Jewish Second Temple possible, as Zoroastrian Emperor Cyrus allowed his new Jewish subjects their full freedom of religion.The word “malida” or variant thereof is actually found in many Eurasian languages and cultures, including the Latin term “mellita”, which means “sweet, like honey”.

The Bohra Muslims of India also make a form of “malido”, particularly at Muharram.Recipe for Bene Israeli Jewish Malida http://www.taradeshpande.in/malida-bene-israeli-style-sweet-poha