This recipe is one of the all-time favorites in almost every house of India. In winters, especially after every meal when we want to have desserts, what comes in our mind is gajar ka halwa. It’s mostly made in winters because the carrots that we get in this time of the season are more juicy, fresh, sweet and gives that nice bright orange color that the regular ones fail to give.
There are many ways to prepare this, one is to cook it in the pressure cooker / microwave, and the second one, which I personally prefer is our traditional way to cook it slowly and steadily on low flame in an open pan taking that pain. This way it gives that perfect taste of roasted carrots in ghee, that taste is incomparable to other methods. uhmm! I’m loving it 🙂
When you will taste it you’ll realize how something can taste so amazing with just some handful of ingredients, it is the patience and love that is put in it, that’s the secret to it.
Thank you TicklingPalates.com for sharing your version of this recipe, helped me measure the ingredients while I was trying out this on my own.
| Serves: 4 |
Preparation time: 15 mins |
Cooking time: 1 hr |
Level: medium |
| Tip: Keep cooking and roasting the carrot in ghee for a long time till the raw smell and taste goes and that will only make your Gajar ka Halwa get that heavenly taste. |
| Tip: The sugar quantity can be adjusted as per your own personal taste, but if you follow the exact proportion mentioned here it will not be overly sweet. |
| Tip: Use mortar and pestle for crushing your cardamom instead of using cardamom powder as that will give it a better smell. |
Ingredients for Gajar ka Halwa
- 1/2 kg Red Carrots
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 1/2 cup Whole milk (Khoya)
- 6 tablespoon ghee (clarified butter)
- 10 cashew nuts
- 8 to 10 raisins
- 1/2 teaspoon cardamom powder
- 4 to 5 almonds (for garnishing)
Directions
- Wash the carrots and trim their edges. Scrape the skin lightly and grate all the carrots using a grater and keep aside. I used my food chopper.
- Soak the almonds in some warm water for 15 – 20 mins. Cut in thin stripes.
- Chop the cashew nuts into small pieces and keep aside.
- Heat a heavy bottomed pan or kadai and add 3 tablespoon of ghee. When it becomes warm, add the chopped cashew nuts and roast over low flame till golden brown. Drain them completely, transfer to a plate and keep aside.
- Now to the same pan, add the grated carrots. Simmer the flame completely and sauté for 15-20 mins. The colour of the carrots would have completely changed and it would have gotten cooked completely. But the most important thing is that the raw smell of the carrots would be completely gone by now.
- Now add milk to the cooked carrots and increase the flame to medium. Let the carrots cook in the milk till the entire mixture almost becomes dry. Keep mixing in between to avoid the carrots sticking to the bottom of the pan. This should take 15-20 mins.
- Now add the sugar and mix well. Once you add the sugar, the entire mixture would once again become liquefied or of loose consistency.
- Once again keep cooking till the entire mixture becomes thick. The sugar would begin to caramelize the carrot and milk mixture and then you can see that the consistency becoming sticky. This should take 15 mins.
- When the halwa becomes dry, add the remaining 3 tablespoon ghee, cardamom powder, roasted cashew nuts, and raisins and mix well. Cook for 5 more mins while mixing continuously and the halwa will come together in a mass. Switch off flame and take off stove.
- Serve hot or warm in individual bowls and garnish with striped cut almonds and silver work.
| Tip: Some people like to have the Gajar ka Halwa a little cold and not warm, so you can also put it in the fridge for a while to cool it down and then serve. |
