Potato Halwa

Oh My! How time flies...It seems just yesterday that Vaishali announced the ingredient for this month's JFI and I remember promising myself that I would not miss this event, having missed Coconut and Ginger in a row.. I was still in my own world blissfully thinking about the couple of more days left for the event, when it suddenly dawned on me that Little Miss February had only 28 days! And had I not peeked into Indira's site on 27th, I would have ended up a late comer. :-)

I had to act fast and though the first dish to cross my mind was Potato Puffs, they have already been made and served at many a blog...So, it had to be something special for this special event...And that was how I chose Potato Halwa. I was optimistic of the texture of potatoes and that it would blend well with the rest of the ingredients. My recipe didn't let me down. It came out very well.

Recipe:

Source: Myself

Potato - 6 medium
Sugar - 3/4 cup
Water - 1/4 cup
Broken Cashew Nuts - 3 Tbsp
Evaporated Milk/Milk Powder - 2 Tbsp
Ghee/Clarified Butter - About 7 Tbsp
Cardamom Powder - 1/4 teaspoon
A pinch of color

Soak cashewnuts in warm water for 5 minutes and grind to a smooth paste.

Peel and grate the potatoes. Keep them immersed in water all the while, to prevent them from turning black. Rinse the gratings 5 to 6 times to remove the starch and set aside. In a saucepan, add 4 to 5 cups of water and boil the gratings till soft. Drain and keep aside.

In another saucepan or in the same, boil sugar and water to one string consistency. Add the boiled potato, color, ground cashewnuts and milk powder and two tablespoons ghee. Keep stirring and cook till the mixture comes together as a mass. Add the rest of the ghee and stir. Keep stiring till the halwa starts leaving out ghee. Take it off heat. It can be transferred to a dish to be moulded or can be served as such.

Addendum: Check out another version of Potato Halwa at Anisha's blog!