Gaajar Halwa

I met Appu and Abbas today, and we had this nice talk about carbs. and how the lesser there are around and within us, the better it is for our kind of lifestyle. I have steadily reduced the amount of sugar I have with my cup of tea or ukada (or ukado since it is a gujarati recipe) and am okay with it.
The recipe below is in complete defiance of the statements above. However in my defense, I used much less sugar than I usually would have.

Ingredients:

Grated fresh red carrots(gaajar):	about 1kg
Cow's Milk (preferably full fat containing ≥ 9% SNF):	about 2ltr
Sugar:	to your taste, but you could start off with 200g
Cow's Ghee (clarified butter):	2-3 Tbsp
Elaichi:	seeds of 4-5 pods, well separated
Elaichi powder:	1 tsp (or to taste)

Procedure:

1. Take the Ghee in a saucepan and add the elaichi seeds, and heat the ghee till it is hot, and just till you hear a pop sound.
   



2. 
   Add the grated carrots and coat every bit of them with the Ghee (on a slow flame).
   
   



3. 
   Heat the milk in a saucepan till it is hot.
   
   



4. 
   Pour some (about 500ml) of the hot milk into the carrot and ghee mixture, turn up the flame to medium and stir continuously.
   
   



5. The milk will come to a boil.
   
   



6. We want to make mawa (or khoa) from the 1.5ltr of remaining milk. You can find out how this is done. Basically it involves simmering the milk till the water almost vaporizes. The semi-solid mass that is left will be used later in the making of our halwa.



7. Once the mawa is made, mix it with the rest of the carrot mixture (which should have considerably thickened by now. I hope you were continuously stirring it all this while!!).



8. Also add the sugar. The sugar will immediately melt and give off a lot of water. We need to burn off all this water.
   
   



9. Stir continuously till the water evaporates and we are left with a semi-solid mass (more liquidy though).
   
   



10. Evenly sprinkle the elaichi powder over this mass and stir continuously.
    
    



11. Till the mixture thickens to a consistency of your choice.
    
    



12. Let it cool, and enjoy!!!! :)

btw, this is the 100^th post on this blog!!