Thadiyangai halwa also known as Kasi halwa or Poosanikai halwa is a traditional delight served at most South Indian weddings. Its glossy, colourful and simply melts in the mouth. The best thing about this halwa is, it can be prepared in a jiffy with minimum and easily available ingredients at home. It requires very limited sugar/ghee when compared to other halwa varieties and that makes it healthy too. Diet conscious people can gorge on it guilt-free. You could plan this halwa for simple parties at home too. Let's look at the ingredients and method to prepare this simple, yet flavourful halwa. It is a good idea to choose a pumpkin that's aged well and over 6 kgs. From that, you can use 1 kg for this halwa recipe.
What You Will Need:
How To Make It:
1. Remove all the seeds, skin, and innards from the pumpkin and dice it into small pieces.
2. Next, grate the vegetable and squeeze the excess water using a muslin cloth. Set aside.
3. Heat a pan over medium heat and add the grated pumpkin. Gradually, the quantity of pumpkin will start reducing. Let it reduce until it becomes approximately 300 grams.
4. At this stage, add one cup of the strained pumpkin liquid and continue cooking in medium flame until it gets dry.
5.In the meantime, add saffron to half a cup of pumpkin liquid and let it soak for sometime. Grind cardamom pods to a fine powder.
6. Add the saffron infused water, sugar, broken cashew nuts and a pinch of salt. Cook over medium flame for around 7-8 minutes.
7. When the halwa begins to froth on the sides, add ghee. Cook further for around 3-4 minutes on medium heat. Add the cardamom powder.
8. As soon as ghee streaks appear on top, the halwa is ready. Switch off the flame.
9. Serve hot or cold.
