- 1 cup – Split (Yellow) Moong dhal
- 1/2 cup Ghee
- 3/4
cups to 1 cup Sugar (as your sweet tooth demands)
- 1/2 cup Milk
(or water – I did something in the middle! Used Low
fat milk! Its just little better than water)
- Cashews/ raisins
roasted in ghee for garnish.
- 1/2 tsp cardamom powder
- few
strands of Saffron
* Saffron and cardamom powder are my additions. Can’t imagine a sweet
without these!
Method
Soak 1 cup moong dal overnight.
Note: You can optionally dry roast the lentils in a
skillet until aromatic and lightly golden and then soak it in water. It
helps to enhance the taste and fragrance of this dessert though it is
optional.
Next morning, grind to a paste.
Take a heavy Kadai/ Non stick skillet. Heat 1-2 tsp of ghee and saute
the cashews and raisins, until the raisins get all puffy and cashews
are roasted.
In the same skillet, add 1/4 cup of ghee and warm it up.
Add the dhal paste and stir continuously, not allowing lumps to form.
This part is very tricky since the dhal cooks really fast, irrespective
of the ghee.
Keep the heat at the lowest and keep stirring even after the dhal
becomes thick.This is when your hands will become your enemies and hate
you for making them work
Add the rest of the ghee intermittently (I warmed the ghee before
adding it) and cook the dhal until aromatic and the ghee starts oozing
out.
Meanwhile mix the sugar with water/ milk in a pan and bring to a
boil. You can add the saffron and cardamom powder to this mixture.
Otheriwise you can simply add them towards the end to the dish directly.
Whatever works for you.
Add this slowly to the cooking dhal.
Keep the heat low at all times and break lumps if formed while adding
the sugar and water/ milk mix.
Cook until the ghee surfaces and halwah gets a shiny creamy texture.
Garnish with cashews and raisins. I have tried my level best to
capture the shine and the creaminess in this Halwa via my photo. I wish
I could transfer the picture captured by my eyes – it would have done
these halwa more justice than the man made gizmo. Amazing dish!
Some helpful Tips :
* Use a thick bottom pan or better nonstick pan.
* Don’t leave the halwa unattended. The dal can stick and it can go from
just done to burnt in a second so keep stirring as much as possible.
You should remember to keep stirring to prevent dhal from sticking
irrespective of the ghee added.
* You aren’t looking for the halwa to get too thick when you turn off
the heat. It was thicken as it cools.
* Cook until ghee surfaces on the sides and the halwa attains a very
nice shine.
* Initially, it may appear that all the ghee is being used up. But as
the dhal cooks the ghee separates. So the ghee measure is sufficient.
* In both recipes depending on how you got the moong dal paste, you may
require slightly more ghee to get the texture
