Makhan Bada

A maida dough deep-fried in ghee and then dipped in sugar syrup.

Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains dairy (ghee), dairy (yoghurt).

Ingredients

• 400 g maida, plain white flour
• 100 g ghee, cold, for the dough
• 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 4 tablespoons plain yoghurt
• about 100 ml cold water
• ghee for deep frying
• 350 g granulated sugar
• 200 ml water, for the syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom

Method

1. A MAIDA DOUGH DEEP-FRIED IN GHEE AND THEN DIPPED IN SUGAR SYRUP. That is the entire method its article gives, in one sentence -- MAKHAN BADAS ARE MADE OF MAIDA FLOUR AND ARE DEEP-FRIED IN GHEE AND THEN DIPPED IN SUGAR SYRUP -- and the frying medium is the part worth keeping. Ghee, not oil. It is what the outside tastes of.
2. WHAT THE ARTICLE DOES NOT GIVE, SO THESE ARE CHOICES AND NOT FACTS. It names maida, ghee and syrup and stops. The cold ghee rubbed into the flour, the soda, the yoghurt and the resting below are how this method gets the texture the article describes -- SIMILAR TO A GLAZED DOUGHNUT IN TERMS OF INGREDIENTS, BUT DIFFERS IN TEXTURE AND TASTE -- and they are mine, not its.
3. RUB THE COLD GHEE INTO THE FLOUR UNTIL IT HOLDS A SHAPE WHEN SQUEEZED. A hundred grams into four hundred. This is what makes it flake apart rather than tear.
4. BRING IT TOGETHER WITH THE YOGHURT, THE SODA AND AS LITTLE WATER AS IT WILL TAKE, AND DO NOT KNEAD IT. Ten seconds of pressing, no more. Kneading builds gluten and a kneaded one comes out tough and bready.
5. REST IT HALF AN HOUR, THEN SHAPE TEN BALLS AND PRESS A DIMPLE IN EACH. The article compares the shape to a medu vada and the size and preparation to a Rajasthani baati. The dimple is what stops the middle staying raw.
6. FRY THEM IN GHEE THAT IS BARELY WARM, AND LET THE HEAT COME UP SLOWLY. This is the step that decides it. In hot fat the outside sets in a minute and the inside never cooks; started cool, they sit on the bottom, rise slowly, and take twenty to twenty-five minutes to go deep gold all through.
7. MAKE THE SYRUP TO A ONE-THREAD CONSISTENCY WHILE THEY FRY. Sugar, water and cardamom, boiled five minutes. It wants to be hot when they go in.
8. DIP THEM HOT, FOR FIVE MINUTES, THEN LIFT THEM OUT TO DRAIN. Hot into hot is what gets syrup into the middle. Left in to cool they turn sodden; lifted out, they dry to a crust you can hear.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under India · All recipes