Monday, February 6, 2012

Ghaun Na Loat No Sheero/Gehun Ke Atte Ka Halwa/Whole-wheat Flour & Almond Dessert


Gujarati's are born with sweet tooth, well I might be exaggerating a bit, but for my family this stands totally true, my father, my hubby, my grandfather-in-law, infact my whole in-laws bunch are crazy sweet toothers. I have heard mind boggling stories about how my mother-in-law along with my grandmother-in-law and aunt-in-law used to prepare huge quantities of kansaar (sweet dish prepared from broken wheat, jaggery & water) and eat it as LUNCH, imagine just a sweet dish as lunch. These days we all laugh about it mentioning as old habits.
P hates sugar in his everyday meals but he is a die hard fan of sweet dishes. When it comes to choosing his favourite sweet dish, it comes down to roshogulla, soan-papdi, wheat flour halwa, sukhdi, mysore pak, gajar ka halwa etc etc, trust me the list is quiet long. I can surely say that he has one favourite sweet from every state of India.
I remember ghaun na loat no sheero was prepared by my mom on almost every other sunday, my sweet tooth dad devoured almost half of it in one sitting. After meeting P, I came to know he too enjoyed it, so just like my mom I too prepare it once a month atleast.
The best thing about this is that it is prepared using whole-wheat flour- good source of calcium, iron, fiber and other micro & macro nutrients and minerals like selenium, Jaggery- which is considered as wholesome sugar which contains more minerals and lesser chemicals than refined sugar, Ghee-which is clarified butter, milk, water, cardamom and dry fruits like almonds.
P and I both prefer it to be mild in sweetness.


Ingredients:
3/4th cup Whole-wheat flour
1/3rd cup ghee/clarified butter
1 cup warm water
1 cup warm milk
1/2 to 3/4th cup jaggery/gol/gud, crumbled
3 pinches of cardamom powder
5-7 almonds roughly chopped

Method:
Heat ghee in a deep heavy bottom pan and add whole wheat flour, mix well. Keep stirring and roast flour on medium heat till it is nice golden brown and releases lovely roasted aroma.
Now add warm milk and warm water to roasted flour, mix well on low-medium heat breaking all the lumps and stirring it till it is nice smooth. Add in jaggery and cardamom powder.
Keep stirring occasionally till jaggery has melted, at this stage do a taste-test and see if you need more sweetness to the dish, if yes add more jaggery. 
Cook for 2-4 minutes more on low-medium heat till sheero starts to separete from the sides releasing ghee.
Garnish it with chopped almonds and serve warm.


Tips:
You can add 1/2 tsp dry ginger powder/sunth powder along with cardamom powder, it tastes best during wintery months. Dry ginger powder has medicinal properties from combating cold & cholesterol to treating nausea, sea sickness and help thinning blood.
Powder of ginger root gives a nice "aahh whats that?" taste to the dish.
Always remember to use warm milk and warm water or else the roasted flour will turn up in unforgiving lumps.
If you are planning for a low fat version of this dish just replace milk with same quantity of water, ie 2 cups of warm water instead of 1cup warm water and 1 cup warm milk.

1 comment:

  1. nice n yummy ....today's sunday dessert for my maggi...old is gold type...
    love..krin's

    ReplyDelete