how to make carrot halwa?

Ingredients:

• Fresh Carrots – shredded – 4 cups
• Milk – 3 cups (whole milk gives richness, but you can use reduced fat too)
• Sugar – 1 cup
• Ghee (clarified butter) – 8 tbsp. (approximately 1/2 cup)
• Cashew nuts – 10
• Cardamom pods (elachi / elakkai) – 1 (or 1/8 tsp. cardamom powder)

Step 1.Wash, peel and grate the carrots. I used the medium blade in the mandoline to grate. I measured the carrots loosely but heaped.
Step 2.Place a wide-mouthed, heavy-bottomed vessel in Medium-High heat.Add 4 tbsp. ghee. 

Step 3.Add the shredded carrots into the ghee and mix well.  

Step 4.Fry until the carrots turn pale.  Do you see the color difference in the carrots? Carrots have turned pale which means they won’t have raw smell. You’ll now feel a kind of sweet smell from the carrots. This process takes around 10 minutes. Add the milk.  

Step 5.I used 3 cups of milk. i.e. enough milk to submerge the carrots so that they get cooked well in the milk. Allow the milk to boil. Takes 5 minutes. 

Step 6.Let the carrots get cooked well in the milk. The carrots should drink in all the milk. This will take 20-30 minutes. Stir the content from time to time to prevent scorching.   

Step 7.Once the milk is completely drunk, add in the sugar. Mix well. Reduce flame to Medium. Once sugar is added, the content tends to liquefy. Need not alarm. Stir at regular intervals. We need to wait until the mixture turns thick. This will take around 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile work on Step 8 and 9.

Step 8.Place a small wok in medium flame. Roast the cashews will 1 tsp. ghee. When the cashews turn golden, turn off stove and remove the cashews from wok.  

Step 9.I like to have my cashews broken. If you prefer to have it whole, please do. Remove seeds from one cardamom pod and powder it. 

Step 10.So where were we? Yeah, we were waiting for the sugar to get thick. See, the carrot mixture became thick. Now, add the remaining ghee/clarified butter (4 tbsp.)  

Step 11.Add the roasted cashews and powdered cardamom. Mix them well.  

Step 12.Cook the halwa stirring occasionally until the added ghee separates out. This takes 10 more minutes. 

Serve the Carrot Halwa hot, preferably warm.