Carrot Pudding (Gajar Halwa)

This is a really easy to make desert with just couple of basic ingredients. This is an authentic Indian desert and you can make it better by adding more things but the basic recipe is super Yum too.

So lets, get started w ith the some basic information about the recipe-

Quantity- For 2 people

Cooking Time- 30-40 minutes

Ingredients- Carrots, Milk, Sugar, Cooking oil (Yes, you read that right! That is it for ingredients)

Method-

Step 1- Take 5 medium sized carrots and rinse them properly. Then thinly grate them using a grater and set them aside.

Step 2- Take a medium sized pan and heat 2-3 spoons of cooking oil in it. I used vegetable oil for this recipe but other cooking oils like canola oil or olive olive are equally good. After the cooking oil is hot, put the grated carrots into the pan, put the heat on high and cook them for 3-4 minutes or until they are a bit soft.

Step 3- After the carrots are soft, put 2 cups of milk in it and let the heat stay on high. I used Full cream milk for the recipe but you can use low fat milk as well if you want. But for best results I recommend full cream milk. Keep stirring the mixture every 30 seconds to prevent milk from sticking with the pan.

Step 4- While milk and carrot mixture are mixing with each other, put 3 spoons of sugar into the mixture. I prefer 3 spoons but you can adjust that according to your sweetness preference. After adding sugar keep stirring it every now and then to prevent things sticking with the pan. You will have to continue this process until the water content in milk is all evaporated and milk has turned into thick hard cream or like milk solids and its mixed seamlessly with carrots. Turn the heat to medium when Milk has turned into a thick cream but there is still some water content left in it and continue stirring on medium heat until all water is gone. You will see the thick milk solids stick with the carrots after its all cooked.

Step 5- Just before a little to no milk is left, taste your mixture a little bit to check if carrots have become super soft or not. If you feel like the carrots need to more soft then add a little bit of more milk and let it do its job to make carrots softer. When there is no milk left in the pan, turn off the heat and put the mixture in a plate. If you want to garnish it, use cashew nuts or crushed almond pieced to garnish your desert.

Step 6- Mmmmm... Smells nice already!! Enjoy!!!!!

Additional Tips- Garnishing will cashews or crushed almonds really add some good texture to the recipe and make it even more healthy. But that is not essential part of recipe, your dish will still taste good without adding dry fruit.

Many restaurants cook this recipe with like ratio of carrots and milk close to 60:40 respectively. That is completely upto your preference. The ingredient list I provided will not get you close to that ratio because I like it with that much ingredients. So you can add more milk if you want to feel more milk solids coming into your mouth. They are very soft and yummy and many people love it absolutely.

So yes, you can play around with the quantity of ingredients and make it the way you like. I still don't know the best quantity but I like to cook with the quantity I mentioned in the recipe.

Hope you will like this recipe. Thanks for reading.

Happy Cooking!! :)