Gajar ka Halwa

Gajrela is a winter dish, and it is worth waiting for winter to make it. The tender red carrots that appear in the cold months — lal gajar — carry their own sweetness, and they are what separates a great halwa from a merely sweet one. If all you can find are the hard orange ones, the recipe still works; it just needs a little more sugar and a little more patience.

Ingredients

• 1 kg red carrots, peeled and grated (about 8 cups grated)
• 4 tbsp Gobind Ghee
• 1 litre whole milk
• 150 g sugar, or to taste
• 100 g khoya (mawa), crumbled — optional but worth it
• ½ tsp green cardamom powder
• 12 almonds and 12 cashews, slivered
• 2 tbsp raisins

Method

1. Heat 1 tbsp of the ghee in a small pan and fry the nuts until just golden, then the raisins until they puff. Lift them out and set aside.
2. In a wide, heavy pan, heat 2 tbsp ghee and add the grated carrots. Cook on medium for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring, until they darken and lose their raw smell.
3. Pour in the milk. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer uncovered, stirring every few minutes and scraping the base.
4. Keep going for 35 to 45 minutes, until the milk has almost entirely gone and the mixture is thick. This is the long part and it cannot be hurried — the flavour is built here.
5. Add the sugar. The mixture will loosen again as the sugar melts; keep cooking and stirring until it thickens back up, about 8 minutes.
6. Stir in the khoya and the last tablespoon of ghee. Cook for 5 minutes more, until the halwa is glossy and comes away from the sides of the pan.
7. Take off the heat. Stir through the cardamom, the fried nuts and the raisins.

The ghee note

Ghee goes in at three points, and each does a different job: at the start to take the raw edge off the carrots, at the end for gloss and richness, and separately for frying the nuts so they stay crisp. Skipping the final spoon is the most common reason home halwa tastes flat compared with a halwai's.

Tips

• Grate the carrots on the coarse side of the box grater. A food processor shreds them too fine and the halwa turns pasty.
• Use the widest pan you have. More surface area means the milk reduces faster and the colour stays bright.
• Taste before you commit to the sugar — good red carrots need much less than you would expect.

Substitutions

No khoya? Add 3 tbsp of milk powder with the sugar, or use 200 ml of condensed milk and cut the sugar back sharply. For a lighter version, skip the khoya entirely and cook the milk down further.

Storage

Keeps in the fridge for 5 days in an airtight box, and freezes well for a month. Reheat in a pan with a teaspoon of ghee rather than a microwave — it comes back much closer to fresh.

Serving

Warm, in small bowls. A scoop of vanilla ice cream against hot halwa is not traditional and is very good.

Nutrition

Approximately 320 kcal per serving, based on six servings, with khoya. Estimated values.