Handesh - a recipe to connect with my childhood

Handesh, Malpua, Molpo or Chom Chom? What do you call this thing?

I am sure you had the feeling when you take a bite of or smell something and the experience of it takes you back to your childhood. Yes, you are right. I am in a mood to feel Proustian. Just to take the whole thing even further: the experience shamefully made me even jump in the air.  This is precisely what happened to me when I was making handesh. 

Having looked at a number of books  about it, I noticed that different books I was reading called the same sweet dumpling differently and is also making it slightly differently. 

Since, I am rediscovering my past, I will stick close to that I am use to calling in my Sylhetti Bangladeshi culture in Britain:  handesh. Just to confess, I have never made handesh in my life until the January 2021. 

Unfortunately, being a boy in a Bengali house when I was growing up,  I would usually notice women do most of the cooking; usually I must stress.  It appears that  there  are exceptions to such a rule. My mother had a competition in the house and was a fierce one too. In fact I remember vividly that that she would frequently say something like:

‘This is a woman’s job. I don’t  know why he is cooking. Why is your dad cooking?’

He was an Indian chef after all by trade.  My dad would go away to work in the weekdays.  I remember he would go to Ipswich. When he is back, he would cook so many different dishes as chooses. When he felt lazy, he would make handesh.

It is the urge to recreate handesh made me think about following a recipe. Since I had no clue how to make it because no one bothered to teach me,  I bought a half a dozens of Bengali cooking books during the second lockdown. 

Bengali Cooking: Seasons and Festivals - written by Chitrita Banerji

Brick Lane: Cookbook - written by Dina Begum

My Bangladesh Kitchen - written by Saira Hamilton

Bangladeshi Cuisine  - written by Shawkat Osman

Taste of Eastern India -  written by Kankana Saxena

When I looked at Banerji’s book, she called what I know as handesh as malpo, whilst Saxena spent it as malpua.  Hamilton explained a dumpling similar to the recipe. She refers to it as chom chom. However, the nearest to what my family would make and I am familiar with explained by Saxena in her book on p. 140.

The reason she reminds me of it, regardless of what she calls it, is based on two things: the look of the dumpling and its taste.  So, I chose Saxena recipe.

She used the recipe to make 40 dumplings (although I made half the amount).

Ingredients for Maple

1 tsp fennel seeds

2 cups (250 g) all purpose flour

1/2 cup (88 g) fine semolina

1/2 cup (96 g) sugar

Tiny pinch of baking powder

1/2 cup (118 ml) milk

2 cups (473 ml) water

Oil (either vegetable or sunflower), for deep-frying

Process of making it:

Phase one:

To me it was a very simple process. You just have to grind the fennel seeds in a mortar and pestle for  30 seconds.

In a mixing bowl, whisk the flour, semolina, sugar and the crushed fennel into it and add baking soda. Then, just add milk, water and whisk the batter for  another 5 mixtures.  You don’t need to use an electric mixer. It’s  really that easy. 

Leave it to rest for 30 minutes. Do not forget to cover the bowl whilst you leave it to rest.

Phase two:

Put a deep saucepan over a medium heat and lots of fatty oil (ideally two inches according to Saxena).

Next to the pan, do not forget to place a plate and put kitchen paper to over it. This is to make sure that once you pan fried handesh you then put it on the plate to absorb excessive oil from it.

Your next step would be to whisk the batter one last time. Then just take 2 table spoons of the batter and slowly and carefully (if you are inexperienced like me) and add them to the hot oil. Make sure you add two spoons at a time otherwise you might find that they stick with each other if there are too many of them frying at the same time.

Once one side looks golden, just toss it over. Make sure the colour is slightly golden/brown. Keep an eye on whether the dumplings are puffed up.

Once it is fried, place it on the plate on top onto kitchen paper. Keep on frying until you have had enough.

Just Eat

Saxena recommends that you should consume it with tea. I will just have it leisurely as I see fit. I guess that is how I was able to ruin my teeth so early on. You can have it with syrup. Feel free to check page 140 of her book to find the recipe. I have had it with syrup when I was a boy, maybe I would have used it. Since I don’t remember eating it with syrup, I will give it a miss. 

At least I had the opportunity to recreate what I had left behind when I was a child during lockdown. It was a lovely experience although I personally am not a fan of handesh!