Gajar Ka Halwa at Home: Carrots Slow-Cooked in Milk, Finished With Khoya and Cardamom

A winter evening and a bowl of gajar ka halwa belong together in most desi homes. The secret is not expensive ingredients, it is patience: the carrots have to cook slowly in milk until the milk all but disappears into them. Rush it and the halwa leaks water; give it time and you get that dense, slow-cooked sweetness no shortcut quite matches.

Ingredients

One kilogram of red, juicy carrots, washed, peeled and grated; one litre of full-cream milk; 200 grams of sugar, adjusted to taste; 250 grams of khoya, crumbled; four to five tablespoons of desi ghee; half a teaspoon of cardamom powder; two tablespoons of slivered almonds and pistachios; one tablespoon of raisins.

Method

Heat a spoon of ghee in a heavy-bottomed karahi, add the grated carrots and fry for five to seven minutes until the raw smell goes. Pour in the milk and cook over a medium flame, stirring every few minutes. In about forty to forty-five minutes the milk will have nearly dried up and the carrots will look soft and glossy. Add the sugar only now — earlier, and the carrots release water and stay firm. Once the sugar’s moisture has cooked off too, stir in the khoya and the remaining ghee and roast for eight to ten minutes, until the halwa starts leaving the sides of the pan and the ghee glistens at the edges. Finish with the cardamom powder and take it off the heat.

Serving

Serve it warm, scattered with almonds, pistachios and raisins. One thing worth remembering: red desi carrots give the real colour and sweetness; the orange kind leaves the halwa pale. Leftovers keep happily in the fridge for four or five days — and plenty of people swear it tastes even better the next day.