Godhumai Halwa recipe / Wheat halwa - Thirunelveli halwa

Godhumai halwa / Wheat halwa / Thirunelveli style halwa has been one of my dreams to make it at home. But always get scared to try thinking about the ghee that goes in. I have been waiting to try for this Diwali and luckily, 3 months back, a reader(Shankari Bagavathi) who’s background is from Thirunelveli, asked me to try and post. I told her that I have no authentic recipe. She immediately sent me recipe which is from her own grandma, but also referred a video in which a different method of making sugar syrup was there. So I combined both as she suggested me and tried. And I was amazed with the results.
With no artificial food colour or flavourings, I could totally relate it to the ‘Iruttu kadai halwa’  which I have tasted 2-3 times. Once when we went for a family tour to Thirunelveli and the other two times, Vj got it from some shop. Later I asked him to stop buying as I am not a big fan of this halwa. I like it but I cant take more than 2 spoons, it will ‘thegattify’ for me.


The first time I tasted wheat halwa was when I was kid and it was homemade. Mom made it like a project and she made it in a large quantity, so I could see her sweat making it. One has to keep on stirring it so, it was difficult for her I understood. I just watched her making later tasted it little that’s it. Those days I used to completely hate sweets. And when I got conceived something ulta happened and I started loving sweets. But still I can say I don’t hate sweets now, not much addicted as well.
What I love about the recipe is the caramelizing sugar part. It adds more flavor and colour to this halwa and tastes very close to the authentic Thirunelvali Iruttukadai Halwa. Thank you so much Shankari, for sharing the recipe . These days we are in nuclear family system and I am sure you can make this in small quantity like me for this Diwali and surprise your family with this authentic sweet. My picture is not that great, coz I got content as well as tired after finishing this project, so took the pictures fast.

Wheat halwa / Godhumai halwa

Recipe Cuisine: Indian  |  Recipe Category: Sweets
Prep Time: 8 hrs/ overnight soaking    |  Cook time: 45 mins    |  Makes: 15 small squares

Ingredients

Whole wheat (I used Samba godhumai)	1/2 cup
Sugar	1 & 1/2 cup
Cashew nut	8
Ghee	3/4 cup

 

Method

1. Wash and soak the wheat berries overnight(or 8 hrs).
   
2. Drain the water, grind it with 1/2 cup water smoothly.
   
3. Filter it using a large metal strainer.
   
4. Again grind the remain with another 1/2 cup water. Strain through a metal strainer.
   
5. Keep the collected milk from the ground wheat aside for 30 minutes undisturbed. Drain the excess water. Make sure to use correct sized vessel to ensure draining the excess water easily (my experience).
   
6. In a heavy bottomed vessel, I used a nonstic pan, heat 1 tblsp of ghee and fry broken cashew nuts until golden brown and keep aside. Add 1/2 cup sugar and 1 tblsp of water to it.
   
7. Continue heating in medium flame, while you keep stirring. It will melt, get dry again and then later start changing colour. At this point you should put the flame to low. Make sure you stir all the time and not let the flame in high or not let the sugar get burnt. Otherwise the whole halwa may turn bitter.
   
8. When the sugar syrup turns golden in colour, this is perfect for this halwa. Add 1 cup water REALLY CAREFULLY AS IT WILL SPLUTTER. Stir well so that the caramelized sugar gets dissolved. Yes, it will solidify and float on the top when you pour water. So mix well to almost dissolve it.
   
9. Now add the remaining sugar and mix until it dissolves. Continue boiling until you get one string consistency. That it, wipe a little syrup from the back of the ladle dipped in sugar syrup, using ur fingers – forefinger and thumb, a string will form inbetween ur fingers without breaking. Be careful not to miss the consistency, make sure you do it in medium flame otherwise you will get burfi instead of halwa. Add the drained wheat milk.
   
10. Keep mixing as you are pouring. The colour will change as the milk gets cooked.
    
11. Now start adding ghee little by little, say one tblsp at a time and mix until the ghee gets mixed with the halwa for every tblsp. It will absorb (incorporate the ghee) so add little by little as you mix and stir for a minute and repeat the process.
    
12. At one stage, the ghee will not be absorbed anymore, it will be at the sides as such.
    
13. It may take a lot of time, so patience is the key. Never put the flame in high, do in medium flame always. Keep stirring, the whole process takes 30 mins roughly.
    
14. Now add the cashew nuts and keep stirring until the whole halwa sticks to your laddle you are stirring and rotates freely. Do not switch off as soon as the halwa starts to leave the sides of pan, the texture will be too soft like porridge if you taste. keep stirring until you see whitish spots appear in the halwa and the whole halwa will start changing slightly pale.
    
15. Spread it over a greased plate and let it cool down.
    
16. Optionally you can cut it into pieces or spoon it as such to serving bowls.              

Notes

• I used samba variety of wheat berries. For me extracting milk was mess free and I could extract completely the milk and fibre in two times itself. I am not sure with the other variety. My mom used to say samba godhumai works best. So I saw this pack of samba godhumai in mustafa surprisingly and took it to try this halwa.
  
• Making caramelized sugar syrup is important for this recipe for getting the authentic flavour. But make sure you do not brown the sugar too much.
  
• You may not need the whole 3/4 cup of ghee, it depends, so add accordingly and see yourself.
  
• The ratio of wheat and sugar is 1 : 3 , so do not alter the recipe for the glossy look and authentic taste.

Perfect for the Diwali festival season, loaded with ghee and sugar. Restrict yourself to few spoons per day and enjoy the halwa.

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This Kalakand recipe is an easy sweet made with paneer. Just few ingredients and your sweet is ready within minutes with very less effort. I have not tried this before in my life, also have not tasted this sweet. Tried this last month for posting this Diwali. This one sounded easy and simple to try. No ghee, just paneer is the fat in this sweet. I am yet to plan Diwali sweets and Diwali snacks for this Diwali 2014, but it will be the usual sweets that Vj and Aj likes. Mostly Badusha, Gulab jamun, maida burfi, thenkuzhal murukku. Stay tuned for an authentic recipe coming up next and also few easy recipes to follow it.  

Easy Kalakand recipe| Diwali sweets

Recipe Cuisine: Indian  |  Recipe Category: Sweets
Prep Time: 15 mins    |  Cook time: 5 mins    |  Makes: 9

Ingredients

Paneer, grated	2 cups (250 gm)
Condensed milk (Milkmaid)	1/2 tin (200 ml)
Sugar (optional)	2 tblsp
Milk powder (Dairy whitener)	1 tblsp
Cardamom powder	2 pinches
Pistachios	5 for decoration

 

Method

1. Thaw paneer completely either by keep it outside for few hours or keeping immersed in hot water for 10 mins. Drain and squeeze water. Place it in a blender and use the pulse button and crumble it.
2. In a mixing bowl, place the condensed milk, paneer, sugar, milk powder, cardamom powder.
3. Mix well and pour it to a non-stick pan. Also keep a plate, greased with ghee. I used a square tiffin box, lined with baking sheet. 
4. Keep mixing in medium flame for 4 minutes or until it starts leaving the sides of the pan.
5. Pour it to the greased plate and let it set until it cools down. You can cut it when it is warm, into squares. You can decorate by pressing roasted pistachios in each square.

Notes

• I saw the recipe in milkmaid youtube video and they had not used sugar. but the sweetness was less for me, so I added sugar.
• The sweet tastes best next day after being refrigerated.
• You can mix a pinch of saffron dissolved in 2 tblsp of warm milk and mix with the kalakand in step 2.
• Rose essence also can be added 2 drops in place of cardamom.
• Fresh chenna can be used in place of paneer. Cooking time may vary.
• Its best way to use a curdled milk.
• Milk powder/ dairy creamer can be omitted, but recommended as it helps to bind and give some richness to the sweet.

Soft, rich and easy to make paneer sweet – Kalakand! Delicious! Perfect for last minute Diwali preparation.

Technorati Tags: easy kalakand recipe,instant kalakand recipe,kalakand recipe,kalakand with paneer,kalakand sweet,kalakand burfi

Palak Paneer, Sweet corn pulao, aloo paratha - Lunch menu 48

This weekend also its a North Indian lunch menu , coz Vj is working this weekend and we both are very much comfortable with this simple NI lunch. Navratri is over and I am so content and happy that I could pull it up keeping kolu without skipping after our trip to Vietnam. Vietnam trip was quite good and the 5 days break from routine life was much needed and no cooking mainly . But the 5 days work put together in the past two days for golu arrangements, cleaning for saraswathi poojai and all those things. I am sure all of you are enjoying this long weekend. Are you gearing up for Diwali already? Shopping for cloths and planning Diwali celebrations with sweets and snacks must have started. Wait for Diwali recipes from Rak’s kitchen from next week. I won't be flooding with recipes, but sure won't disappoint you as well, as usual!
This week’s lunch menu has sweet corn pulao, aloo paratha, palak paneer along with curd and pickle.

Palak paneer, Sweet corn pulao, Aloo paratha

Recipe Cuisine: Indian   |  Recipe Category: Lunch
Prep Time: 30 mins     |  Cook time: 45 mins     |  Serves: 2

1. Soak basmati rice in warm water. Make dough for aloo paratha. I made just 2 for us. I microwaved potato for the stuffing.
2. Clean spinach(palak). Chop onion, tomato for palak paneer and keep other ingredients like mint, coriander, garlic, ginger and green chillies ready. Keep paneer cubes immersed in hot water until use.
3. Grind for corn pulao. Prepare corn pulao first and let it be cooked in a stove.
4. Fry palak, green chilli and let it be aside. Temper and continue making palak paneer. While tomatoes are being cooked, you can grind the palak.
5. Prepare palak paneer, by now pulao also will be ready. Fluff it and keep aside.
6. Lastly prepare aloo paratha hot when you are ready for lunch.

Serve with dahi and pickle for paratha. Easy lunch ready for your family. I say it easy coz corn is frozen, paneer for gravy, so only chopping onion, tomato and garlic peeling is work. 2 aloo parathas can be made in a jiffy.



Check out the recipe links.

1. Aloo paratha recipe
2. Palak paneer recipe
3. Corn pulao recipe

You can also make boondi raita to go well with aloo paratha if you have boondi in your hand. Jeera rice, jeera cashew pulao, mix veg pulao can also be made in place of corn pulao.

Have a great weekend

Technorati Tags: sweet corn pulao,palak paneer,indian lunch ideas,indian lunch recipes,aloo paratha,lunch menu ideas

Millet sweet pongal (Kuthiraivali sakkarai pongal)

I made this millet sweet pongal on saraswathi pooja yesterday. This year since both of them went to school and office, I had to do pooja only in the evening. I finished all the works for the pooja and after Aj came back from piano class, we both did the poojai. Vj was too busy and came late. When I was kid, I used to be thrilled on Saraswathi pooja day coz, we need not read that day . Otherwise also I won’t read every day , still officially no reading that day right?  But we used to help mom from the eve of saraswathi pooja day itself. We wash the windows, dust the house, wipe the doors, frames (nelai padi) – at the bottom of the nelai padi, both sides, we first apply turmeric, then pattai with sandal paste (freshly ground) and put kungumam and decorate the nelai padi. Next day, we keep sandanam and kundumam pottu everywhere. We don’t put viboodhi pattai, only sandhanam and on top of it kunguma  pottu. We used to love that job .

Here I don’t do anything to the nelai padi, only keep pottu everywhere. No mavilai  at the entrance. Usually Aj helps me keep pottu, but this time I did myself. I kept my camera yesterday for myself along with Vj and Aj’s books . I made peanut sundal yesterday along with this and vadai. Otherwise offered fruits, pori, kadalai while poojai.
I followed the same method as out regular sakkarai pongal and made this Barnyard millet sweet pongal (Kuthiraivali in Tamil / Jhangora in Hindi / Odalu in Telugu / Oodalu in Kannada). It was delicious!

Millet sweet pongal recipe

Recipe Cuisine: Indian  |  Recipe Category: Sweet
Prep Time: 5 mins    |  Cook time: 25 mins    |  Serves: 3

Ingredients

Barnyard millet/ Kuthiraivali	1/2 cup
Moong dal/ paasi paruppu	2 tblsp
Jaggery powdered	1/2 cup, heaped
Ghee	3 tblsp or as needed
Cardamom	1
Clove	1
Cashew nuts	6

Method

1. Roast the moong dal in a tsp of ghee until golden (optional). Roasting gives a unique flavor. Wash the millet and add it to the roasted dal.

2. Pressure cook with 2 cups water for 3 to 4 whistles. You can do it directly in a small pressure cooker like me or in a separate container kept inside the cooker.

3. Once done, add powdered jaggery and mix well. If you feel your jaggery has impurities, make syrup by adding water just to immerse the jaggery and melt it, filter to remove impurities and add the syrup. Add to the cooked millet.

4. Fry cashew nut, clove, cardamom in ghee and add cashew, clove to the pongal. Add ghee, powdered elachi  and keep mixing for 3 to 4 minutes.

Notes

• If you cook directly, take care not to over cook as it may get burnt at the bottom.
• You can add a pinch of nutmeg, a mustard sized edible camphor.
• If becomes thicker later, you can add boiled milk and heat a little to make it loose.

It tastes great and there is no compromise in the taste.

Technorati Tags: millet sweet pongal,kuthiraivali sakkarai pongal,recipe,millet recipes,kuthiraivali recipes,barnyard millet recipes,south indian millet recipes