Nama ooru special -Tirunelveli Halwa

                                      

     

                                       It is basically wheat halwa. The whole cooking process is little laborious but it is definitely worth for the effort. Traditionally, milk is extracted by soaking wheat berries. But in this method, milk is extracted from wheat flour. The process consumes plenty of fat. Yes only the process, not the halwa. Nearly 60 to 70 percent of the fat used is collected at the end and it can be used in other foods.The colour of the halwa is achieved by adding caramel to the halwa and not by adding any food colour. Though the process is bit lengthy, it is not that difficult as it sounds...let us get into the recipe

Ingredients:

1. Wheat/Atta flour - 1 cup
2. Sugar - 2 to 2 and 1/2 cups + half cup (for caramel)
3. Ghee - 1 cup and a tablespoon (for frying cashews) and a tablespoon (for making caramel)
4. Oil - 1/4 cup (I used Mazola. U can use any refined oil)
5. Water - 5 cups + a little (to make dough)
6. Cashews - few

My 1 cup is 240 ml. The above measurement will yield around 1 kg of Halwa...

Prep work:

     1. Milk Extraction:

Firstly make a dough with 1 cup of atta flour as we do for chapati dough. Need not use any oil while making the dough. 

Add 5 cups of water to it and soak for 3 to 5 hours

After soaking, Mix the dough with the water so that the whole mixture turns milky. Filter the milk. U will end up with some residue. Just throw it off.

     2.Ghee +oil mixture:

Mix 1 cup of melted ghee and 1/4 cup oil in a bowl. U can also use ghee completely to prepare extra rich halwa by avoiding oil. Shops usually use ghee + oil mixture.

Recipe:

Youtube link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKTMHddxalE&t=202s

Now take a wide kadai, preferably non stick kadai and fry some cashews in ghee... add the extracted milk to the kadai on top of the fried cashews.

let it get cooked for a while.. The milk will get thicken and reach a porridge consistency..at this stage add the sugar..The amount of sugar varies from 2 to 2 and 1/2 cups .. That completely depend on how much sweet toothed  you are...

At this stage, start making caramel. Melt half cup of sugar in a tablespoon of ghee in a small bowl.. 

Initially there will not be any change. Slowly the sugar will start to caramelise. Wait till dark Amber colour and take off the caramel. This is a quite tricky part because if u miss this stage, the caramel will taste bitter which will spoil the taste of our halwa. 

Add the caramel to the halwa and be careful while doing so. Caramel tends to splatter.

Just keep on stirring the halwa by adding the ghee+oil mixture in-between.. 

Add 2 tablespoons of ghee at a time and stir the halwa until the halwa completely absorbs the ghee. 

Continue this process until the ghee oozes out. Halwa itself will let u know when to stop cooking. U can stop adding the ghee when the ghee start oozing out. 

Switch off the flame.. In few minutes most of the fat gets separated.. U can slowly remove the fat with the help of a spoon and use it later in other foods. Tada!!! Our Halwa is ready!!!