Carrot Halwa and the Tamil Gettogether!

We have a great Indian community in our locality...and good number of tamilians too. We generally have couple of gettogether conducted by the Tamil speaking Desi's. Each time couple of families join together and host it. This time it was us. I joined along with couple of my friends and hosted it. We felt it was more or less like a wedding!! So much organizing went into this....we started talking about it couple of months ago!! So much prep work goes into it - like deciding on the date (set for April 24, 2010), venue, sending evite, deciding the menu for the pot luck and what not.....It was fun organizing it. We had a good turn out for the event - close to 90 people (including kids)!! My son a two year old was too excited about it and kept asking me about Tamil Gettogether!! He saw me preparing the invitation and I told him that it was the evite for the gettogether....the next time he saw it (probably couple of weeks later)...he said "tamin gettogether" that's how he pronounces the word "tamil"...it was really surprising to note that he could recollect it just by seeing the image on it!!

For the potluck my friend and myself decided to make "carrot halwa"...it is not just with bunch of carrots but around 3 kgs of carrots..Couple of our friends suggested that we get hold of a food processor to grate it..I was a bit reluctant about going ahead with the mammoth task but somehow convinced myself that I would be able to do it. I was all along scared about grating so many carrots...but agreed to make it with the strength my friend gave me!!

I started out on this venture couple of days ahead of the "D day" since I had other things that needed to be taken care of. We were planning for "Jodi Porutham (Made for Each Other)" contests for couples and I wanted to be free from the kitchen on that day to take care of other things.

Items needed for making the halwa -

This is the measure to make smaller quantities-
3 Cups of Grated Carrots
1 1/2 Cups of Milk (You may use whole milk too)
1 1/2 to 1 3/4th Cups of Sugar
1/2 Cup Whole Milk Ricotta Cheese (this is closer to the khova we get back home)
2 Tbspn Ghee
2 Tbpsn chopped nuts - cashew, almonds, raisins

Pour the milk over the grated carrots. Microwave the carrots first for 10 minutes. Then again do it for anotherr 10 minutes (increase the minutes based on the power of the microwave). Back home they pressure cook the carrots upto one whistle (you may do it the way you want!).

Take a heavy bottomed pan. Add the carrots and the sugar. Cook till the milk and the sugar are completely absorbed. This was the first time I tried making carrot halwa by adding ricotta...these days I have a liking towards ricotta cheese and want to try more dishes with it (like pasta filled with ricotta....will do it soon).
Add the ricotta cheese when it is still in the semi solid state. This ricotta adds the taste to the carrot halwa...makes it nice and wholesome. Some opt for adding almond paste too (if you are adding almond paste make sure you add it upfront along with the sugar so that the raw taste of the almond does not stay).

When the milk and sugar are absorbed from the halwa ..just add a Tbspn of ghee to prevent it from sticking on the bottom. This halwa does not need ghee that is a plus point right!!

Add the ghee and keep it for couple of more minutes. The halwa is ready to be served!!

Everyone loved the halwa that we prepared. Not just the halwa....all the food that the ladies prepared were yummy. Since we were running around taking care of things "as a host would normally do (athithi devo bhava)" we could not enjoy the food as much as we always do...generally all our friends will get to sit around a big table, chat and eat.... But we were happy that everyone who came to the gettogether enjoyed the food , the games and the party was a great success. We were happy that everyone enjoyed the evening hosted by us!! We had a swell time too.......Looking forward to the next gettogether this summer which would be an outside event !!