Thirunelveli is famous for its #iruttukadai halwa which is traditionally prepared by extracting wheat milk from #brokenwheat. The wheat milk is then sautéed in ghee for hours. Though the process seems laborious ,its totally worth your time and energy. Instead of going by the authentic route, you can still prepare the halwa by extracting wheat milk from wheat dough. I have already posted a similar recipe where i had used orange food colour. After doing a bit of research on the net, i was finally able to nail the colour of authentic #iruttukadaihalwa. No food colour is used which is totally a win-win for all conscious eaters out there.
Why travel all the way to Thirunelveli when you can make #iruttukadaihalwa at the comfort of your own home?
Required Ingredients:
- Whole wheat flour- 4 cups
- Water-8-9 cups + extra for kneading
- Ghee- 3/4 cup + 3 tbsp
- Sugar-5 cups
- Cashews (broken into halves)- 1/2 cup
Method:
- To a bowl, add 4 cups wheat flour, water as required and knead into a smooth dough as you would do for rotis/chapatis.
- Once done, add 8-9 cups water and soak the dough for minimum 3-4 hours.
- After 4 hours, you would notice that the water has turned milky. Gently, knead/crumble the dough with hands.
- Filter the wheat milk from the dough by squeezing the crumbled dough. Discard the residue
5. Heat a kadai/wok with 2 tbsp ghee and fry the cashew nuts until golden. Remove the cashews and leave aside.
6.To the same kadai, add the extracted wheat milk and stir in low to medium flame until it thickens and reaches porridge like consistency. This should take about 20-25 mins in low-medium flame.
7. Once it thickens, add 4 1/2 cups of sugar and stir in .
8. To another pan/kadai, add 1 tbsp ghee and 1/2 cup sugar and heat until it caramelizes and turns brown. Exercise caution not to over heat otherwise it would turn bitter.
9.Add the caramelized sugar to the mixture from previous step exercising caution as it would splutters.
10. Keep stirring continuously for 20-30 minutes until it thickens. Once it thickens, add 3/4 cup in small intervals and keep stirring until the halwa forms a mass and starts to leave the sides of the pan. This would take about 40-50 minutes.
11.At this point, you would see ghee oozing out from the halwa. Turn off the flame.
12. Transfer it to a bowl greased with ghee and serve warm.
Notes
- Cook the halwa on low-medium flame throughout
- You can halve the recipe if you are trying it for the first time.
- You’ll notice ghee oozing out every time you re-heat the halwa. You can collect the excess ghee and use it for making other sweets
Sinfully Yummy 