Wah! Wah! Gajar Ka Halwa/ Carrot Halwah..

The last of the warm weather.. dark mornings, brr.. awakenings and stepping on the cold tiles in the kitchen now requires me searching out the warm socks and jackets. Outside too, fall is setting in, with the leaves changing color backstage, getting ready for their annual fashion show.

A slight dip in the temperatures evokes memories of even tempered places elsewhere and the invitations from my West Coast families are so tempting..sigh.. This is the weather that sends me running to the comfort food zone...warm, sweet and rich food..It's festival time too every where so what better to make than sweets..

When the first hint of winter sets in, the juicy super sweet blood red carrots would start appearing in the markets. When they flooded the market in super abundance, my father couldn't resist the deal and would get kilos of it just because it was fresh, cheap and so obviously good for you. A quarter would get peeled and get used for snacking, a quarter for later and the rest would get converted to my favorite form of eating this vegetable..gajar ka halwa!! My way to get the big five veggies in my diet (at that time.):)

So when I started writing the recipe down, I couldn't pin down the exact ingredients. We just make it with any amount of carrots and adjust the ingredients according to taste. This is the closest I could get but use your judgment and reduce or increase the quantity of sugar and milk(enough to get the carrots cooked to a mush). We used to use "Khoya", a form of concentrated milk solids in the end so that you get tiny morsels of it along with the halwa..like adding powdered kalakand to the halwa. Khoya is available at Indian stores but you could substitute with heavy cream added earlier or even concentrated ricotta cheese. Though the khoya here is not as fresh as the ones back home (here it's a little dry and not as creamy) it still adds a lot of flavor at the end.

Serves 6-10( reduce quantity in proportion if you want to make less)
you will need:
Carrots- 8 cups grated
Whole Milk- 9-10 cups milk
Sugar-approx.1 1/2 cups..add more or less as per taste.
Cardamom seeds- 1 teaspoon seeds crushed into powder
Water- 3/4 cup
Ghee-3 tablespoons...substitute ghee +khoya with 1 cup cream
Khoya(Milk solids)- 1/2 cup(optional)
Raisins, Almonds, Cashew nuts- to taste


Preparation:
Wash, peel and grate the carrots. Grating gives the best result but is not so easy on the arms. If possible, convince the muscle building husband/brother in law or brother to do the grating. So if you want, use a grater/chopper attachment in a food processor and finely chop the carrots and then pulse it in the mixie/blender twice...don't grind it to a paste. This will homogenize the texture.

Set the water and half the milk to boil in thick bottom pan( a pressure cooker pan or non stick pan will do) and when it starts boiling, add the grated carrots. Cook on a medium flame for 1 hour (or less)stirring occasionally. When all the milk has been absorbed, add the rest of the milk. The approximate proportion of milk is a bit more than the quantity of carrots.

Mix well and cook on medium heat again till all the milk has been absorbed.This should take about another 40 minutes more or less (depending on quantity)and the carrots should have been full cooked by now. The milk should be on a simmer all the time, else the flame is too low. The time is really an approximation and may take more or less.
After that, the milk will soon start to evaporate so keep an eye on the flame. Add the sugar and mix well and keep cooking. After all the milk is gone and the carrot starts darkening in color, add the ghee. Keep stirring and mix well till the halwa starts to move together as one mass without any much liquid left. Add the crushed cardamom powder and the crumbled khoya. Mix well and saute for just 2 more minutes.

If you don't have khoya, use condensed milk but omit sugar in the recipe, or use 1 cup heavy cream after the carrots gets cooked and keep cooking. The cream will give it the richness and you won't need to add ghee after that.
The substitutes should be added in the beginning..only khoya is added in the end. The khoya just adds a rich milky taste at the end and it should be as tiny morsels in between the halwa.
Garnish with cashews,almonds or pistachios. Serve cold, hot or at room temperature.
This is my entry for the JFI sweets hosted by Srivalli..cooking for all seasons.


On another note, I was given this really cool award by Geeta of Paytpooja. An award by a fellow blogger is one thing that never fails to brighten up the day. Thanks Geeta!
The rules of the award are: Put the logo on your blog. Add a link to the person who awarded you. Nominate 10 other blogs. Add links to those blogs on yours, and leave a message for your nominees on their blogs. I am happy to pass on this award to my fellow blogger friends.
So I nominate the following for the cool blogs. Enjoy!!
When my soup came alive
Live to eat
Solai's chettinad kitchen
Peppermill
Cooking and me
Cooking for all seasons
A Delighted Foodie
Comfort food network

Love Letters../Mutta kuzhalappam /Madukku San...

Oct 10th was the first day of our college life.I wonder if any of my old hostel mates and friends remember that. My hostel days were best enjoyed at the evening tea time... we get back from a hard day (:))!!!)at the college, tired and hungry and rush to the mess. A cup of tea with the snack of the day and we all sat down on the steps trading gossip and news about co-hostelers, classmates, teachers..no one was spared. A lot of laughter and leg pulling punctuated our nonstop talking.

The steps were a important element in the Hostel's layout. The hostel's plan was a large octagon encircling a courtyard. There were only two diagonal points of entry stepping into the courtyard..one at the entrance and one on the other side of the courtyard...critically located just outside the TV room, en route to the mess(cafeteria). To reach any room, you could either cut across through the courtyard or take the long route around inside the walls.

Sitting at the steps opening into the courtyard was the final rung in the hierarchy of the senior -junior relationships. The freshers at the beginning of a year would skitter away from the steps, walking briskly, almost hugging the walls, trying not to meet any one's eyes to escape the senior's questioning, taking the longest possible route to get back to their dorms. But by the end of the year, most of them would be leisurely sharing a laugh with the same seniors and awaiting the next batch of freshers with relish.

The rush to the mess was to get the tea as hot as possible and to test our luck with the snacks. The mess was (is?) ruled by the three top (iron) chefs, "chechis"/ladies who could only be called "prosperous" to be politically correct. Looking at them , you could understand why the hostel inmates always looked hungry..(as the guys used to tease us saying we get only kanchi-payar in our cafeteria).

The snacks ranged from Uzhunnu Vada, which was pretty good to sukiyan, which I never endeared to, to dried up tea cakes wrapped in old parchment. Sometimes the snacks were so horrible that you just wanted to trade them away and sometimes they were the only redeeming feature of the whole day's menu.


Love letters, as the mess cooks called it, was something that had a taste and resembled good food reworked into mass quantities. It was a thin layer of a crepe like soft roll filled with coconut and sugar that oozed out when you bit into it. I tolerated it at first but over the years there, slowly got a fondness for it. We did wonder why they called it "love letters" though. Probably due to its scroll like design.

Mishmash and Ian gave me two other commons names for these crepes, Mutta kuzhalappam and Madukku San which is what you must be familiar with so I have added that to the title now.

This is one versatile pancake or crepe or love letters, whatever you want to call it. Just like crepes but much easier and lighter in preparation, they are a bland backdrop to any filling that can flavor it..sweet or spicy.


You Will Need:For about 8-10 crepes
All Purpose Flour/Maida: 1 1/2 cup
Egg -1
Milk -About 2 to 1 1/2 cups
Salt - a pinch

Preparation:
Lightly beat the egg and then add to the flour with salt and milk. You could replace 1/3 of the milk with water with no taste difference. Whisk everything till its well combined and of a pourable consistency. Heat the griddle/ non stick pan and lightly grease it as you would do for a dosa or pancake. When the pan is medium hot, lower the heat and pour one small ladle of the batter. Quickly spread it in an even circular motion, making sure there is only a thin layer everywhere. As soon as the crepe changes color to a golden brown and the underside comes off in one sweep, its' cooked. It takes less than a minute to get one done. Remove to a plate, and spread filling of your choice and roll.

Ghee-sugar: Spread a thin layer of ghee (clarified butter) on the hot crepe/love letter and sprinkle sugar evenly. Start rolling from one side tightly to get the roll.

Coconut-Sugar: Toast the coconut on medium heat for 2 minutes and then add sugar (to taste) and stir till the sugar melts and the coconut is sweetened. Add cardamom powder for a spice kick.

Coconut-Jaggery: Same method as above but add melted and filtered jaggery syrup to the coconut. Substitute with brown sugar to save time. Add chopped ripe plantains as an option.

Apple pie filling: Apples cut into tiny pieces, cooked with cinnamon and sugar till they turn soft and gooey.

Spicy Filling: any of the fillings used in the erachi samosa/meat samosa or the meen pathiri/fish pie will go well with this.

Calicut Beach...

Here are some photos that was sent to me by my family. It's a time study of the Calicut Beach on Eid day. The normally placid beach front is flooded with people and cars all day long. This is for all the expatriates who miss the Eid celebrations back home.

The Beach on a normal day..

The View of the beach immediately after the Eid Prayer.

The mass of people at 7pm at the beach.

Sunset at the Arabian Sea.

Night sets in and the beach is still crowded.

Eid Mubarak!!!

A
very hearty Eid Mubarak to all my friends, family and all my loyal readers...