Moong Dal Halwa is one of famous Rajasthan desserts. It is a winter special and this halwa is known to keep the body warm during the winter months. It is also one of the sweet dishes accompanied in the wedding feasts also. It is a simple dish made with Split moong dal, sugar, ghee and milk. I read that peoples of Rajasthan love to eat sweet before, along with and after dinner and lunch.
I had not heard anything about moong dal halwa until Srivalli announced it for this month ICC. It never occurred to me spilt moong dal is also used to make halwa, other than its use in curries as well as for making payasam and sarakarai pongal. Srivalli has given two recipes for making moong dal halwa, and I selected second one for making my halwa. I roasted the moong dal as suggested by Lathaji. I made only half of the recipe, as sweets take long time to finish in my house. This is a delicious healthy (if you use less sugar and ghee) and protein rich sweet ready to warm you up on a cold winter day.
What you need
Spilt Moong dal/ Split Husked Mung Bean: ½ cup
Ghee/clarified butter: ¼ cup (I mixed half of ghee with half of canola oil)
Sugar: ⅓ cup
Milk: ¼ cup
Water: ¼ cup
Saffron: 6 threads
Cashews: 9 no
Raisins: 13 no
How I made:
In a thick bottomed pan roast ½ cup moong dal until they become golden color and gives out nice aroma. It took about 7 minutes in medium flame. Then soak this roasted moong dal for overnight. Next morning, grind to a paste.
In a thick bottomed pan, heat ⅛cup of ghee and add ground dal paste and stir continuously, so that no lumps will form. This part is very tricky as the dhal cooks really fast, irrespective of the ghee.
Keep the heat at the lowest and keep stirring even after the dhal becomes thick.
Add the rest of the ghee intermittently and cook the dhal until aromatic and the ghee starts oozing out.
Soak saffron in 2 tablespoon of warm milk and keep aside
In another pan mix the sugar with milk and water in a pan and bring to a boil. Add this slowly to the cooking dal.
Keep the fire low at all times and breaks lumps if formed while adding the sugar and water/ milk mix.
Cook until the ghee surfaces.
Heat a tablespoon of Ghee in a small pan and fry cashew and raisins until cashew become golden brown and raisin puffed up. Pour this into prepared moong dal halwa.
Notes:
• Use a thick bottom pan or better nonstick pan
• Don't leave the halwa unattended. The dal can stick and it can go from just done to burn in a second so keep stirring as much as possible. You should remember to keep stirring to prevent dhal from sticking irrespective of the ghee added.
• You aren't looking for the halwa to get too thick when you turn off the heat. It was thicken as it cools.
• Cook until ghee surfaces on the sides and the halwa attains a very nice shine.
• Initially, it may appear that all the ghee is being used up. But as the dhal cooks the ghee separates. So the ghee measure is sufficient.
• In both recipes depending on how you got the moong dal paste, you may require slightly more ghee to get the texture
Roasting time: 7 minutes
Soaking Time: Overnight
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 45 minutes
Verdict: Yummy
Will you make it again: I will
Swathi
This is Swathi ( Dr. Ambujom Saraswathy Ph.D) from Zesty South Indian Kitchen who loves to explore cuisines from all over the world. Whenever possible I try to to give an Indian touch to several of the world cuisine, and has weakness for freshly baked bread. All the recipes you see here are created by me and approved after taste-test by my family.
Swathi says
sheeba,sheetal thanks
Srivalli i have changed the link, thanks for visiting
Srivalli says
Glad it came out well..btw can you change the link to Spice your life and not to icc as it is private one..thanks..
Sheetal Kiran says
Ahh ... husked dal in addition to the split dal ... that's very interesting! I am going to try that when I try the halwa next time. Looks delicious, Swati!
forkbootsandapalette says
beautiful..all these halwa pics are making me hunger for it even more!
Priya says
Beautiful halwa, looks yumm!!
Swathi says
Rachana thamks
lataji, I don't know about texture, but i liked the taste very much.
lata raja says
Hi Swati, Very nice halwa. i got this very texture too and was wondering if it was right.
Rachana Kothari says
Dear Swathi,
Happy Pongal to you and your family:) The Halwa looks delicious:)