Majoon Barfi | AlifBe~43
Majoon barfi is inspired from the traditional Majoon sweet, made around Diwali and in winter season, by Sindhi folks.
Ingredients
  • 1 Cup Almonds (Or ½ cup Almonds and ½ cup Walnuts)
  • ½ Cup Cashews
  • ¼ Cup Pistachios
  • 7-8 Dry dates
  • ¼ Cup Khas-Khas
  • 1 Cup Sugar
  • 500 ml Milk
  • 1 Cup Mawa
  • ¾th Cup Grated Kopra
  • 4-5 tbsp Ghee
  • 7-8 Green Cardamoms
Method
  1. Soak Poppy seeds (khaskhas) in water for 6 hours. Many skip the process as soaked khaskhas splutter a lot while cooking. But it is an important process as soaking removes the trace morphine from poppy seeds, if present. You can then dry khaskhas (in shade ) to avoid spluttering while cooking. I just soaked it and strained it using a tea strainer.
  2. Rinse well the dried fruits and nuts and spread on a kitchen towel to remove excess moisture. Soak dried dates if too hard, drain on kitchen towel, pound with a pestle, discard seeds and either chop or grind coarse. I preferred chopping dried dates as mine were not very hard.
  3. In a pan, dry roast almonds, cashews, pistachios (and walnuts, if using) on low flame to make the nuts moisture free.
  4. Cool and either pound in a mortar pestle or coarsely grind (using pulse mode of mixer grinder).
  5. Due to the lack of time I was unable to make mawa at home, in the traditional way. And I don't use store brought mawa. So I used cheat method and mixed around 1 cup of milk powder, 2 tbsp ghee and few spoons of milk and microwaved it for 3 minutes. Since the milk powder was sweetened, the resulting mawa was sweet. Also, since this barfi would be consumed by diabetic family members, I used only 2 and half tbsp 'added sugar ' in the barfi. Kindly adjust sugar quantity depending on whether the mawa used is sweetened or unsweetened and upon your level of sweet preferences.
  6. Heat a pan and add 3-4 tbsp of Ghee. Add strained poppy seeds and cook on low flame till slight brown.
  7. Add mawa and cook further. When the mawa is slightly cooked, add grated Kopra (dried coconut). You can use desiccated coconut too. I used a mix of both.
  8. Roast this mix till faint brown (10-12 minutes).
  9. In another pan, heat the milk. Add chopped chuhara (dried dates or Khareek) and cook the mix for 8-10 minutes so that chuhara softens a bit. Add pounded green cardamoms.
  10. Now add the khaskhas+khoya+kopra mix and stir well.
  11. Whole cooking process is to be done on low flame/heat only.
  12. Keep stirring and allow the mix to cook till the milk evaporates.
  13. You can add Moonh lalai or the edible brown food colored powder (available at pasari shops) for better color. I didn't use any.
  14. Add sugar and mix well. Sugar will release moisture so the mix will again look bit gloopy. Keep cooking further till the mix is dry.
  15. Grease a thali (flat plate with elevated edges) or a square baking dish.
  16. Transfer the Majoon mix on the plate and spread evenly.
  17. Flatten the mix and garnish with chopped nuts. Allow to set slightly.
  18. Mark the cuts (I forgot to do that when the mix was hot) and let the mix cool down completely.
  19. Cut into pieces and store in an airtight container, preferably in the refrigerator.
  20. Many people claim that majoon could be stored for many months. But actually it is the Khhorrak that has better shelf life and not the majoon cooked using milk and mawa. But it still stays good for a week or more in refrigerator.
Recipe by Sindhi Rasoi |Sindhi Recipes at https://test.sindhirasoi.com/2021/11/majoon-barfi-alifbe43/