"Pakistani malpura pancakes are a festive fried pancake, topped with honey, fruit or syrup," says Sumayya Usmani of this delicious, easy recipe in her new book Mountain Berries & Desert Spice, which celebrates sweet dishes in Pakistani cuisine. "They're shallow-fried in oil until they have crispy edges, but still retain a spongy centre. Here, I have accompanied them with a delicious raspberry and pomegranate sauce." Beats boring old muesli, eh?
Make Sumayya Usmani's malpura semolina pancakes
These crispy-but-spongy semolina pancakes are so good you'll be eating them for breakfast, lunch, dinner and everything in between
Makes 6-8
Preparation time 20 mins
Cooking time 15 mins
Ingredients
- 150g fine semolina
- 125g all-purpose flour
- 125g caster sugar
- 3–4 cardamom pods, seeds removed and ground
- A pinch of saffron threads
- 300–425ml buttermilk
- A pinch of bicarbonate of soda
- 1 tbsp ghee or oil, for frying
To decorate
- 1 tbsp desiccated (dry, unsweetened) coconut
- 1 tbsp pistachios, chopped
- 1 tbsp walnuts, chopped
- Raspberry and pomegranate sauce
For the raspberry and pomegranate sauce
- 1 pomegranate, seeds only
- 150g raspberries
- 2 tbsp caster sugar
Method
- To make the sauce, cook the pomegranate seeds, raspberries and sugar in a small saucepan over a low heat for 5-7 minutes until soft. Once combined, mash the mixture with the back of a spoon, then push it through a sieve to extract all the seeds, adding a little water if it's too thick.
- Reserve about 2 tablespoons of semolina, then put the remaining semolina, the flour, sugar and spices in a bowl and mix to combine. Add the buttermilk and stir until it forms a batter. Cover with a tea towel and set aside overnight at room temperature.
- The next day, stir the reserved semolina and bicarbonate of soda into the batter until combined.
- Heat the ghee or oil in a frying pan, add 1 tablespoon of the batter into the pan and swirl to form a 2.5cm round pancake. You can make 2–3 pancakes at a time.
- Shallow-fry the pancakes for 2–3 minutes until the edges are crisp and brown but the centre remains soft. Flip over and cook the other side for another 2–3 minutes.
- Remove and drain on kitchen paper, then keep in a warm pouch while the rest are cooked.
- Serve the pancakes hot, decorated with coconut and nuts, with the sauce on the side.
Taken from Mountain Berries & Desert Spice: Sweet Inspiration from the Hunza Valley to the Arabian Sea, by Sumayya Usmani (Frances Lincoln, £20.00). Photography by Joanna Yee
