Carrot halwa with Instant khoya.

I think everyone, I mean everyone loves carrot halwa.

During my husbands tenure in Kenya, we used have a lot of lunches and dinners with his office gang and the family.

Most of them were north Indians who knew how to cook amazing food, especially desserts and traditional sweet dishes.

One of my closest friend taught me how to make the best carrot halwa with no hassles. Everyone absolutely loved it!

As everyone is aware that carrot halwa is rich in calories and is made with carrots, milk and sugar. It is okay to have a little extra calorie once in a while especially when it taste so good.

We can use unsweetened khoya to make it more rich and tasty and can make khoya with in 5 minutes using milk powder and add it to the halwa.

As my research and knowledge many Indian sweets needs khoya.

At home I serve a cup of carrot halwa with vanilla ice cream, the kids love it!

Below is step by step recipe, you should try it at home and let me know your views!

Ingredients for instant khoya: 

Preparation time approx 5 minutes:

• 1 cup full fat milk powder. (I used Nestle Nido)
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 tsp ghee

Method: 

In a wide bowl take 1 cup of milk powder. Heat 1/4 cup milk with ghee. When it is hot add to milk powder. Mix with your finger tips.

Don’t keep the milk powder after adding milk. Mix it immediately. You will get a dough

.

Shape this according to your choice.

Scrape this with a grater or crumble .keep aside. ( this will not spoil for a week in fridge. If you are keeping in freezer it will stay for a month)

Ingredients for the halwa: 

Preparation time approx : 40 minutes

• 4 cup grated carrots ( I used 4 big carrots to get 4 cups )
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 tbsp broken cashew nuts
• 2 tbsp grated pistachio
• 3 tbsp ghee
• 1/2 tsp cardamom powder

Method:

Heat the ghee and fry the broken cashews. When it turns colour takeout and  Keep aside.

In the remaining ghee fry the carrots for one minute.

Pressure cook 4 cups of grated carrots with 1 cup of milk in full flame for 2 whistles. Let it cool .

In a heavy bottomed pan or nonstick pan put the cooked carrots with milk.

Stir continuously.Let it cook till the full milk evaporates.

Once the milk dries up add sugar,continue to cook in medium flame. Once the carrot mixture become thick add cardamom powder and grated khoya.

Add fried broken cashew nuts.Mix well and cook for 2 more minutes.

Pour this into a serving dish.

Decorate with grated pistachio.

Serve with vanilla ice cream

Tips

You can cook the halwa in pressure cooker- one pot dish.