Carrot Halwa

It is a custom that we carry a box of assorted sweets, chocolates, or dry fruits when we visit our friends or relatives. Likewise we also receive such gifts from our guests and we usually finish them all in a couple of days, but the milk sweets remain untouched for few days. Ever since I read a slogan encouraging veganism “cow’s milk is for calves, not for humans”, I began to feel that it is our greed to use cow’s milk, and hence we have no right to waste milk or milk products. So I always look for efficient ways of using left-over milk, curd or milk sweets, and I find carrot halwa as the most delectable transformation of milk sweets.

Carrot halwa is usually prepared by cooking carrots along with a good volume of milk and/or other milk products like khoya (khova) or condensed milk. Now we can prepare it instantly using milk sweets as the substitute of milk products & sugar.

We can elevate a simple dinner at home to the next level by serving delicious carrot halwa as a dessert. We can also serve this halwa to our guests along with ice cream to make it even more special.

I used red carrots for the bright red color and I preferred to microwave them to retain the color (as pressure cooking makes them look pale). I also prefer to garnish this dessert with bright green pista to make it look so impressive. Now the recipe for instant carrot halwa is as below:

Time taken: 15 min

Yields: 1 cup (200 ml)

Ingredients:

Red carrots	3
Milk sweets*	as desired
Soaked pista (skinned & halved)	as desired
Cardamom	2
Ghee	2 teaspoons

*I like to use equal measures of cooked carrot & crushed milk sweets.

Mise en place:

• Peel the carrots and grate them finely.
• Soak pista in hot water for an hour (or microwave for 3 min), peel their skins and cut them into half vertically. (If you like crunchier pista, you may use toasted pista instead of soaked pista.)
• Crush the cardamom seeds using mortar & pestle and leave aside.
• Crumble the milk sweets using fingers & keep aside.

Carrot halwa using microwave oven:

• Add a teaspoon of ghee into a microwave-safe bowl.
• Add grated carrots, mix well and close the bowl with its lid.
• Microwave them for about 8 minutes (or until the raw smell disappears).
• Add the crushed sweets into the cooked carrots, mix well and cook again for 2 to 3 min.
• Now add cardamom powder, chopped pista, and ghee (1 tsp) and cook for a minute.
• Serve carrot halwa warm or chilled.