Pumpkin Halwa

A comfort desert with whole goodness of pumpkin and rich taste of ghee and cardamon with toasted nuts. The desert is a party pleaser which will definitely delight the guests.

Halwa's are Indian desert which can me made in quite number of variations with key ingredients as either any kind of flour, rice, fruits, vegetables or nuts. Halwa's made with flours are usually glutinous blocks, and the other kinds are sticky pudding like. Our place Kozhikode, one of the Northern part of Malabar regions in Kerala is quite famous for different varieties of Halwa.

The recipe was in my bucket list since long. And this time my Mr. bought a big sweet organic pumpkin from the farmers market near by. The pumpkin tasted awesome when i made it as a side for the plain rice. It was having that sweetness which some pumpkins doesn't have nowadays. Talking about Farmers market, it is local market found here during the winter season. The farmers brings their harvested organic vegetables from their local farms here and sells them during weekends. It is like from the months of October/ November till March. So during these months we are consuming only organic vegetables 😍.  So coming to the point, when i had this pumpkin side with the rice, i was like i should definitely make the halwa out of it. And yes i did it. I should say i loved it more that Carrot Halwa, which is quite common. It was having an an outstanding taste i should say.

Pumpkin Halwa
Preparation Time : 15 minutes
Cooking Time : 30 minutes

Ingredients
Pumpkin Grated - 3 cups
Ghee - 3 tbsp
Milk  - 1 1/2 cup
Sugar - 1/8 cup (half of 1/4 cup)
Condensed Milk - 5 tbsp
Cardamom pods -  5 to 6 (crushed)
Cashew-nuts
Raisins

Method:
1. In a pan, add ghee and add grated pumpkins to it. Saute for about 10 minutes.
2. Add milk to the pumpkin, mix well.
3. Add sugar and combine. Saute them till the mixture thickens.
4. Add condensed milk and crushed cardamom pods.
5. Keep on stirring till the mixture is getting separated from the pan and you get the halwa consistency.
6. In a another pan, heat 1 tbsp ghee and roast cashews and raisins.
7. Add in the roasted cashews and raisins together with the roasted ghee to the halwa and combine.

Please checkout the YouTube Video for detailed method:-