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February 29, 2008

Carrot Halva

My mum used to make this when I was a kid and I remember it so well. I tried once a few years ago and it was a disaster. Since I needed to use up milk and carrots and felt like something warm and gooey (it's been cold again) I thought I ought to brave it again. I'm not sure how I could have gone so horribly wrong the first time cause it really is an easy recipe. If you're a bit weirded out by the use of carrots here, just remember carrot cake, carrots have more sugar than some fruits!

In India they swear by the lovely red carrots, which I would swear by too but only the orange ones are available here, but I promise, it still tastes good. This is a fairly big batch.

Ingredients

1 kg Carrots
1 L milk
A teaspoon of freshly ground cardamom seeds
a pinch of saffron
a teaspoon of rose water
a good dollop of ghee
A few big spoons of grated jaggary, to taste

Method

Soak the saffron in a teaspoon of water.

Grate the carrots and fry in a half the ghee on a low heat. Let them soften for a few minutes, add a sprinkle of water if they stick but carrots release lots of water so don't add too much. Next add the milk and bring to a simmer. Let it simmer uncovered, stirring it every 5 or 10 minutes. The idea is to let the milk thicken, it could take awhile maybe 40mins to an hour, to let it all evaporate.

Next fry the cardamom and sugar in ghee in another saucepan on a low heat till the mixture starts to bubble. I use about 3 Tbspns, but traditionally they use a whole lot more. Add the bubbling sugar mix to the carrots and milk, stir in the saffron water and rosewater and let it infuse for another few minutes.

You can serve it hot or at room temperature.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love the info. you have presented in this blog, I have yet to read all the entries..i was wondering if you had any info. on recurring headaches and if yoga or ayurveda can help in anyway....any useful info will be appreciated!

thanks,
TS

Julia said...

I have written a post about headaches for you here:

http://ayurwhat.blogspot.com/2008/03/headaches.html

The most important thing is to pay attention to the other symptoms that come along with your headaches in order to work out which Dosha is involved. A good Ayurvedic Doctor will be able to help you with this.

Yoga can certainly help as it relieve stress, which commonly causes headaches.

Hope this helps!

Deepa Kuber said...

i loved ur blog julia, so much info in one blog.. keep up the good work. do visit my blog.