A Recipe from Rebecca: Carrot Halwa | Canalside Community Food

This recipe for carrot pudding, or gajar ka halwa, was contributed by Arushi Goyal to a cookbook I edited a few years ago. It is sweet and comforting. She describes it as ‘one of the most famous sweet dishes in India, especially during the winter season’. (Ali adds: This is also perfectly timed, with Muslims celebrating Eid-ul-Fitr this weekend after the Islamic holy month of Ramadan ends: gajar ka halwa will no doubt feature in many Eid celebrations across the Indian subcontinent and beyond!)

Gajar ka halwa
Serves 4-6.

Ingredients
Skimmed milk powder
1 big bowl of ghee (Ghee is a clarified butter made from buffalo or cow milk, used in Indian cooking. It can be found in the Asian section of Tesco.)
Whole milk
8 carrots
1.5 cups of white sugar (it can be decreased or increased depending upon taste)

Method
First prepare the ‘khoya’. (Khoya or khoa is a milk food widely used in the Indian cuisine, made of milk thickened by heating in an open iron pan.) To make it, take skimmed milk powder and add ghee to it. All the powder granules should be mixed with the ghee. Then add whole milk to the above mixture to form a thick batter. Place it in the microwave for 1 minute and take it out. Stir it and repeat this procedure two more times. So, in totality, the microwave time should be 3 minutes and the person should have stirred 3 times. The khoya is ready.

Now prepare the carrot pudding: take carrots, wash them, peel them and grate them by using a grater. Take a big pan which can accommodate grated carrots and the other ingredients. Add 2.5 tablespoon of ghee in the above pan. When the ghee melts, add the grated carrots and mix it properly. Now add milk until the grated carrots are submerged under the milk. Stir it at regular intervals. If carrots absorb most of the milk and still they look like as if they were not completely steamed, add more milk. Don’t add water.

When grated carrots have absorbed most of the milk, add the prepared khoya. Also add the sugar and then stir it again. When everything is mixed and absorbed properly, switch off the knob and the carrot pudding is ready.
Special point: Always stir the mixture at small regular intervals otherwise the pudding will stick to the pan.

Recipe by Arushi Goyal, in Simple Scoff: The Anniversary Edition, edited by Rebecca Earle (2015).