Saturday, December 29, 2007

Recipe: Carrot halwa


It has been our practice for long to prepare carrot halwa, especially during the winter as we get the red variety of carrot (which is known as delhi carrot in Bangalore) then. Otherwise, what we get is the orange variety. So during my Bangalore visit, we bought the red carrot and prepared the halwa. The most difficult part of carrot halwa is grating the carrot, which our handsome and charming younger son happily did. I started part of the preparation immediately (read at 10 pm) and completed the process early next morning, so that when my good friend Veena came to say “hello” to me at 7 am the carrot halwa was ready and she was surprised that I had finished the preparation so early in the morning, whereas she had just woken up and come to wish me.

I used full cream milk and the halwa turned out creamy and rich and of course, yummy. Here is the recipe then.

Ingredients:

Grated carrot: 4 cups
Full cream milk: 3 cup
Sugar: 2 cups
Ghee 4 tbsp.
Cashew nuts: 1 tbsp.
Kismiss(raisins): 1 tbsp.
Slivered almonds : 1 tbsp.
Cardamom powder: 1 tsp.
Saffron : few strands

Method:

Boil the milk in the pressure cooker and add the grated carrots. Close the pressure cooker and reduce the heat to the minimum . When there is a steady stream of steam through the weight valve, place the weight and cook for one whistle or 15 mnts in reduced heat. Turn off the heat. (This is the first stage of preparation ). Open the cooker after ½ hour. Meanwhile, soak the saffron strands in 2 tbsp. of milk. Add the saffron to the cooked carrot. Boil the carrot once again on full heat. Add the sugar and stir constantly until all the milk evaporates. Add spoonsful of ghee in between whenever the halwa starts sticking to the vessel. When all the ghee (Reserve 1 tbsp of ghee for frying the dry fruits) has been added and all the moisture evaporated, the halwa should leave the sides of the vessel. Turn off heat. Add cardamom powder. Heat the reserved ghee in a small kadai, add the cashew nuts and kismiss. When the cashew nuts turn pink in color and kismiss swells add to the halwa as garnish. Decorate with slivered almonds.
The full cream milk gives that extra richness and taste to the halwa (you get the twin taste of halwa and thirattupal).

NJOY!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

i love carrot halwa. How clever of you to have a son to do all the grating.

EC said...

Even i find the grating work boring and difficult...but i got to do it myself if i want to have some carrot halwa...you could try out the microwave version from my blog..ur halwa snap is tempting me

Aparna Balasubramanian said...

Carrot halwa is one of my favourites. Making it used to be a yearly ritual for me till I came to Kochi 3 years back. We don't get this variety of carrot here.
Hopefully I will be able to get back to Carrot Halwa making next year.

Ammupatti said...

Hi vegeyum

I feel proud of my sons.

Ammupatti said...

Hi easycrafts

Thanks.

I looked at your blog. The carrot halwa looks a little weepy, i feel.

Ammupatti said...

Hi Aparna

I wish you will be able to prepare carrot halwa sooner.

Anonymous said...

Ammupatti, I've become a big fan of your blog ever since I landed on this site couple of days ago while Google-searching for some recipe. Hats-off to you for being such an active & creative blogger at this age!
-Simi

Leena said...

Just tried your recipe and it came out very well..Glossy and tasty.

Thank you!