BM # 72
Week 3, Day 1
Theme: Festival Recipes
It is always interesting to cook specially for festivals. Actually we hardly celebrate any festivals but since I picked the Theme Festival Recipes for this week I decided to cook a whole platter for the Punjabi festival of Lohri. I shall talk more on that next month when I shall be posting this Thali , for the coming three days it’s just going to be some Lohri recipes.
For the first day it is Gud Ka Halwa. This is a recipe by Marut Sikka a Punjabi celebrity chef. The Halwa is made of semolina but here the semolina is soaked first. I liked the recipe and found it quite interesting. I ran out of my brown organic gud so I used white gud, which is very popular here in Gujarat. My Halwa turned out white but it had that special taste of gud.
Preparations made with Gud are significant on Lohri , the harvesting festival. More on that later, as of now you enjoy the halwa.
Gud ka Halwa
Ingredients
1/2 Tbsp ghee
1/2 cup semolina
25 gms jaggery soaked in 1/2 cup water
1/4 tsp Cardamon powder
2 tbsp brown sugar( I used boora khand, which is light colored powdered sugar )
Nuts
Pinch saffron
Method
Soak the semolina in water for 20 minutes.
Soak the jaggery in water and keep aside.
Heat ghee and add the drained sooji.
Roast the sooji very well, and keep stirring it. This soaked sooji has the tendency to stick.
( I used a non stick pan )
After the sooji has roasted well add the jaggery water and stir continuously, till all water has been absorbed.
Add the brown sugar and nuts and give it a good stir.
The halwa is ready.
