Asoka Halwa
Asoka halwa or moong dal halwa is so simple to make. My mother in law first made this halwa six years ago and my husband has been obsessed with it ever since. It is usually served on the wedding menu. The highlight of it is that bright red color.
This is such a simple dessert to make. Unlike traditional halwas, it does require a lot of soaking, fermenting or stirring.
Ingredients
Moong dal - ½ cup
Whole wheat flour (Atta) - 2 tbsp
Sugar - 1 cup
Ghee - ¼ cup + 1 tbsp
Cardamom powder - ¼ tsp
Red or orange Food color - optional (a generous pinch) or use saffron optionally
Cashews - 10 to 15 (or to taste)
Direction
Dry roast moong dal until nice fragrance is released. Make sure not to brown the lentil and roast without any oil or ghee on low to medium flame.
Add roughly twice the amount of water and pressure cook until mush.
Now to that pressure cooked lentil, use the back side of the ladle to mash the lentil. To that add in a generous pinch of food color and sugar, stir well without lumps. If you do not wish to add the food color, add in the saffron strands at this point and keep it aside.
In a heavy bottom pan or a non stick pan, add in a tbsp of ghee and roast cashews until golden. Drain excess ghee and transfer the cashews to a different dish. In the remaining ghee, toast the whole wheat flour on low flame, carefully without burning.
When the raw smell of the flour is gone, add in the sugar and lentil mix and keep stirring on low to medium flame. Make sure to mix thoroughly without any lumps. Continuously stir until all sugar is dissolved and no more lumps are present.
Now gradually add a tablespoon ghee at time to the mix and keep stirring. Keep adding until all the ghee is absorbed.
Keep stirring until you see the ghee is released and halwa comes together as one big lump and has a perfect non stick consistency. Roughly takes about 20 mins to get the desired consistency.
Note:
Depending on the kind of moong dal, water requirements may change. If you find there is a lot of water but the lentil is cooked, then drain any excess water. On the other hand if there is no water to mash the lentil, you can always use a blender to mash it.
Adding any kind of fat while roasting lentil will not help the dal cook thoroughly. Also I find pressure cooking the dal makes it easy to mash.
You can adjust the amount of ghee as per your dietary restriction. If you wish to make this vegan, I suggest using refined (which takes away the flavor) coconut oil.
Hope you have a wonderful Diwali. If you did try this recipe. I would love to hear about it.
Enjoy and happy cooking!!
Halwali style kaju katli at home