MOONG DAL HALWA
Moong Dal Halwa
The term “ Halwa” brings in loads of memories from my childhood. Have seen my mother making “ GODHUMAI HALWA “! In Tamil wheat is known as “ Godhumai: . She would soak the wheat grain overnight and would grind it on the “ Attukal “ / The grinding stone , manually . by adding water from time to time ,till each and every grain would get crushed completely and then would squeeze out the milky part from it . Would keep it overnight for fermenting , and next day, discarding the watery part from the top , would prepare “ Halwa” using the Milky part !
WHEW ! One can easily imagine how tedious and time taking effort that could be !!
Anyway this is not my recipe for today so I am going ahead with the relevant topic.
In south India Halwa means to my knowledge the one that I mentioned above. Other than that there happen to be “ Rava Kesari” ,prepared with “ Suji” / Bombay Rava , “ Semia Kesari “ prepared using “ Sevai” and “ Avail Kesari “ made with “ Poha / Chudwa / Chivda “! Also there is “ Badam Halwa” which is very much known for its richness .
But in the northern part of India there are amazing variations of Halwas using , “dals and Veggies ..One of the very popular version is “ Moong Dal Halwa “
Here it is , the way I make it . Here I don’t want to get into any argument about my method , whether it is authentic or not . I prefer this method for many personal reasons . One of the most important ones is , it takes less Ghee and , secondly , I don’t have to do everything manually !
Ingredients
1 cup Moong Dal– To be washed well and to be soaked in water for 1 – 1 ½ hours
1 ½ cup of Sugar
¾ cup of Ghee
200ml of Milk & ½ cup of Milk powder to prepare “ Khowa/ Khoya “
7-8 green Cardamoms – Crushed or powdered
2-3 Tablespoons of sliced Pistachios
Method
Make a paste of the dal . Take a microwaveable bowl and put this paste in it . Add two Tablespoons of Ghee to it . Stir it thoroughly and keep it in the Microwave for cooking in medium heat for twenty minutes . In between, open the microwave and stir it .
Once it is cooked, take it out . You will find a solid block of cooked Dal. Don’t be panicky . Cut the block in pieces and spread them on the plate . Once they cool down , once again put them in the mixer or blender .after 1 or two minutes open the mixer and bring the ground part up and send the pisces down. Keep repeating this till you get a grainy consistency .
Now shift this again to the microwavable bowl. Add sugar to it and stir it and again put i inthe microwave in high medium . This will help the sugar to dissolve faster . Take it out and stir it well and cook it again for 20 minutes in low medium .
While this was going on , you may start to prepare your “ Khowa / Khoya “
I have never used readymade Khowa because , the place where I stay , there are not many sweet shops that sell this item . So Decided to prepare it only fresh .
Heat a nonstick pan and pour the milk in it . Add two teaspoons of Ghee in the milk. Once it comes to boil add the milk powder and keep stirring constantly. Make sure that no lumps get formed . Don’t stop stirring . You will notice that the milk has started to become thick now. Continue with the stirring . Once it reaches the consistency of Khowa . put off the flame .
Now come back to the Halwa. Take it out from the microwave and add both Khowa and Ghee to it . Mix it well and keep it again for cooking in low medium for 5 minutes .
Once done , add the cardamom powder to it and garnish with sliced pistachios !
There are a few sweet items that I always prefer to do in Microwave , for various reasons , which I already mentioned above !
So enjoy your BOWLFUL of MOONG DAL HALWA !!
Suswaad- Lalita Ki Rasoi Se 