Malaiyo is made by the weather. Milk is boiled in a wide iron cauldron with saffron and cardamom, poured into shallow vessels, and left uncovered on a rooftop through a cold clear night; the dew settles into it and the surface begins to froth on its own. Before dawn the vendors churn it by hand for hours and skim off what has risen — a foam so light it collapses under its own weight if you look at it wrong, served in thumb-sized clay cups with pistachio and silver leaf, gone from the tongue almost before you taste it. It cannot be made in summer and it cannot be made indoors. The stalls open around five in the morning in the lanes of Chaukhamba and Thatheri Bazar, where it started perhaps a century ago, and by eleven the sun has killed the foam and the day is over. Anything sold as malaiyo in the afternoon has been stabilised with fat to hold it up, and locals will tell you so without being asked.
INGREDIENTS
- 1 litre whole milk (preferably unhomogenised)
- a generous pinch of saffron
- 4 green cardamom pods (seeds finely crushed)
- 3 tbsp icing sugar
- 100 ml double cream (well chilled)
- slivered pistachios (to serve)
- edible silver leaf (vark, to serve)
METHOD
- Warm 200ml of the milk and steep the saffron in it for 20 minutes, then cool it completely.
- Bring the remaining milk to a boil in a wide heavy pan with the crushed cardamom, then take it off the heat.
- Pour it into a wide shallow dish and chill it uncovered in the coldest part of the fridge for at least four hours, or overnight. A skin will form; leave it.
- Set a large bowl over a tray of ice.
- Pour in the chilled milk with its skin, the saffron milk and the cream, and add the icing sugar.
- Whisk by hand, lifting the whisk high to drag air in, until a pale foam rises and holds a soft peak. This takes several minutes and it will look like nothing is happening for most of them.
- Stop the instant it holds. Past that point it turns to cream and the dish is lost.
- Skim the foam off the top with a wide spoon, leaving the thinner milk beneath.
- Pile it loosely into small clay or ceramic cups without pressing it down.
- Top with slivered pistachios and a torn piece of silver leaf and serve immediately.
