Kaale Gajar ka Halwa - Purple Carrot Fudge

There's a certain pleasure in cooking with ingredients that are seasonal and available in limited areas. Like Kaale Gajar or purple carrots available mainly in North India. I certainly haven't seen them in any market in Mumbai.

My friend Sangeeta Khanna of Banaras ka Khana  an excellent blog that showcases recipes from Benaras and Eastern UP, was coming to Mumbai for a very short trip and at my request, brought me a generous bagful of beautiful purple carrots. "It's early in the season and the carrots are baby sized" she warned me as she handed me the precious cargo. I was delighted to receive the carrots, large, small, or baby sized!

If you post the question "What to make with kaale gajar?" on social media you will get two answers - halwa, and kaanji. There are no takers for kaanji in my house so I made halwa with a portion of the booty. Throughout the process of making the halwa we were entranced at the beautiful colour of these carrots and I took lots of photos, some of which you can see here.

A common issue with this halwa is that the milk tends to split. Luckily for me that didn't happen. It could be thanks to the full fat buffalo milk I used.

You can add more sugar if you prefer the halwa sweeter. We're a diabetic household so I kept it as low as possible. I also used condensed milk which is sweetened - another reason why I kept the grain sugar low in my recipe. The recipe also has raisins which add their own sweetness.

There are numerous methods for gajar ka halwa, this is what I did.

Kaale Gajar ka Halwa

3 cups peeled and grated purple carrots/kaale gajar
1 litre milk
2 tbsp sugar
a pinch of salt
4-5 cardamom pods
1/2 can Milkmaid condensed milk
75 grams khoya + 25 gms extra for garnish
2 tbsp raisins
1 tbsp sliced and fried (in ghee) almonds

In a thick bottomed vessel place all the grated carrot. Pour in the milk. I used full fat buffalo milk from my local milk shop, not branded tetrapak-ed milk. Add the sugar and salt, stir well and then put it on the heat to boil. Chuck in the cardamom pods, lightly bashed to open them up and expose the seeds within.
As soon as it comes to a proper boil reduce the heat and let the carrots cook and the milk reduce. This will take a while so be prepared. The milk will slowly change colour as it absorbs colour from the carrots. I was so amazed by the beautiful colour I took a photograph of some of the milk separately and then poured it back into the pot.

Stir the mixture every few minutes checking to see that it hasn't stuck to the bottom of your pan/vessel.
When the milk has reduced to less than half pour in the condensed milk, stir well to mix, and cook further. Add the raisins at this stage.
On the side, heat ghee in a tadka pan and fry boiled and sliced almonds till golden. Keep this aside.

Keep cooking the carrot-milk mixture till it reaches the sticky thick consistency of a halwa. As the mix thickens it will need constant supervision and stirring so the halwa doesn't stick or burn. This is the last 10 minutes or so of the process so don't worry, there's not too much effort required!
Crumble the khoya and mix it in. Cook for a few more minutes till the consistency is perfect.

Remove to a pretty bowl, garnish with more khoa and the fried almond slivers. Serve the halwa hot. 

Gajar ka Halwa - Indian Carrot and Milk Pudding

It started towards the end of October - as the weather cooled in the north I saw picture after picture of the delicious red carrots flooding every food group board on Facebook and more often than not, people were making gajar ka halwa with those carrots. 

I have always disliked Gajar ka Halwa. Once again I have a seemingly stupid reason for my dislike. My dad liked to cook and as most men, especially in those days, he was not into making mundane daal, bhaat, torkari, but liked to cook up the fancy and complicated stuff. The fact that slave labour (me) was available inhouse was an added benefit, I'm sure! And so gajar ka halwa featured often. 

I would be duly sent upstairs to our neighbour's house to get their grater. It was a big red plastic bowl with a white grater that fitted on as a lid. 30 years ago it was unusual and uber cool. Anyway, I hated that grater because I'd be the one stuck grating that mountain of carrots. Okay. Honestly, it was probably just a kilo of carrots but to a 9 year old it was a mountain. I'm not surprised that I remember nothing about the process of making the halwa apart from the grating. I seem to have deleted it all out of my memories! 

Well I am past 40 now and I like to think I have grown up enough to get over the trauma of grating those mountains of carrots. And so I set out to make gajar ka halwa myself. No. I didn't grate any carrots - I got my cook to do that part of the job ;)

Having seen tons of Gajar ka Halwa posts on Chef at Large on Facebook I asked for a recipe. The answers were instantaneous and I had a whole load of fool proof recipes to choose from. Ultimately the Hubby selected one that he felt was the most authentic one and it appealed to me too because it had no short cuts.I like to do a recipe the correct way the first time and only after that pare down the method for an easier version for future use. 

Thank you Harpreet Bedi Chadha for sharing your recipe. 

Gajar ka Halwa (with my own tweaks)

2 kg Red carrots, grated

2 lts full fat buffalo milk

5 green cardamom, seeds removed and reserved. 

Pure ghee, as required

Sugar - roughly 1 cup. Use more or less according to how sweet you want the halwa to be

15 blanched and halved almonds

20 raisins and 10 cashew nuts for garnishing. 

Take a thick bottomed largish vessel to make the halwa. 

Put in the grated carrots and the full fat milk and bring both to a boil. Pound the cardamom seeds gently in a mortar and pestle or under a rolling pin and add them to the boiling carrot and milk. Reduce the flame and let the milk get absorbed into the carrots and reduce. 

Stir every few minutes ensuring that it doesn't stick to the bottom of the vessel. This is going to take a few hours so there is no option but to be patient. Keep stirring every five minutes or so.

In the mean time you can peel the blanched almonds and halve them. Put them aside. Heat a little ghee in a separate pan and fry the almonds very lightly. If you're using raisins or cashews, fry them too. Drain out the excess ghee and leave these aside. 

Eventually the milk in the carrot-milk mix will reduce and you will get to the final stages of the halwa. 

Add the sugar and stir well. The sugar will dissolve and the halwa will get watery again. 

Stir away patiently till the halwa reaches a nice thick halwa-like consistency. If you like you can add a few of the raisins and a few nuts (chopped) to the halwa. Pour in the ghee too. Mix well and your halwa is ready. 

Remove to a pretty bowl and decorate with the remaining nuts and raisins. 

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