Moong Dal Halwa for Indian Cooking Challenge

The December Indian cooking challenge hosted by Srivalli of Spicing your life is Moong Dhal Halwa. I tried Lataji's recipe of the Moong Dhal Halwa. The proportions and directions of the recipe are perfect and the Halwa came out fabulously. Thanks for the new recipe for my collection.


Ingredients:

Split (Yellow) Moong dhal - 1 cup
Ghee - 1/2 cup
Sugar - 3/4 cups to 1 cup (as per required sweetness)
Milk - 1/2 cup
Cashews/ raisins roasted in ghee for garnish.

Method to Prepare:

Soak 1 cup moong dal overnight. Next morning, grind to a paste.

Heat a heavy Kadai, take initially only 1/2 of the ghee and heat it.

Add the dhal and stir continuously, not allowing lumps to form. This part is very tricky as the dhal cooks really fast, irrespective of the ghee.

Keep the heat at the lowest and keep stirring even after the dhal becomes thick.

Add the rest of the ghee intermittently and cook the dhal until aromatic and the ghee starts oozing out.

Meanwhile mix the sugar with water/ milk in a pan and bring to a boil. Add this slowly to the cooking dhal.

Keep the fire low at all times and break lumps if formed while adding the sugar and water/ milk mix.

Cook until the ghee surfaces.

Garnish with cashews and raisins.

Notes :

• Use a thick bottom pan or better nonstick pan
• Don't leave the halwa unattended. The dal can stick and it can go from just done to burnt in a second so keep stirring as much as possible. You should remember to keep stirring to prevent dhal from sticking irrespective of the ghee added.
  
• You aren't looking for the halwa to get too thick when you turn off the heat. It was thicken as it cools.
• Cook until ghee surfaces on the sides and the halwa attains a very nice shine.
  
• Initially, it may appear that all the ghee is being used up. But as the dhal cooks the ghee separates. So the ghee measure is sufficient.
• In both recipes depending on how you got the moong dal paste, you may require slightly more ghee to get the texture
• Though original recipe didn't call for roasting the dhal before soaking, roasting it a bit gives more fragrance.