Rice Halwa or Black Halwa

 Today, the 15th of April, is Vishu.  Vishu is like the New Year of the Kerala calendar. It is celebrated with a lot of joy, prayers, new clothes, great food and festivities. One of the interesting things that the people of Kerala do on the morning of Vishu is to see "auspicious" things in the hope that the year will be auspicious for them. These auspicious things usually consist of harvest, clothes, money, food, pictures of Gods and so on. For me this year has been about a lot of gratitude for all the things I have received. I have received quite a lot of food from my garden - sunflowers, pumpkins, beans, corn, amaranth, figs, apples, lime, lemon, roses, an array of herbs including the holy basil, curry leaf, oregano and rosemary. I have tried to incorporate a bit of all of that in my gratitude picture along with the wonderful gluten free rice halwa or black halwa that is famous in Kerala. 

Black halwa is made from rice flour, jaggery and coconut milk and the halwa gets its black colour from the jaggery. It is flavoured with cardamom and garnished with roasted cashew nuts.  The texture is different to wheat halwa because there is no gluten. 

Halwa is a Middle Eastern dish that got introduced into India by the Turkish invaders in the North and the Greek traders in the South somewhere around the 13th to 16th century AD. Once it was introduced, the local Indians made it their own by adding locally available ingredients. Till today, the North Indian Halwas and the South Indian Halwas are very unique. Halwas are made in India using a variety of flours, fruits and vegetables and garnished with nuts or a form of fresh cheese called Khoya.

Ingredients:

500 grams jaggery

250 grams rice flour

2 x 400 ml tins of coconut milk

6-8 cardamom pods, pods removed and seeds crushed fine

About 20-25 cashew nuts, roasted in ghee and set aside

4-5 tablespoons of ghee

Method:

In a saucepan, add 1 cup of water, add the jaggery and place it on the stove. When the water warms up the jaggery will start to melt.  Once the jaggery has melted completely, strain the liquid using a fine muslin cloth and remove the dust and impurities in the jaggery.  Set aside.

Take a  platter that is about 10 inches wide and 1 inch deep.  Grease it with some ghee and set aside.

Keep the roasted cashew nuts handy and also the powdered cardamom.

Take a heavy bottomed pan - I used a cast iron pan and add the prepared jaggery water, coconut milk and rice flour. Whisk well so that there are no lumps in the rice flour. Place this on a low heat and cook, stirring constantly. You will find that as the rice flour starts to cook, the liquid will start getting thicker.

The trick is to constantly scrape the sides and bottom and keep stirring. Eventually you will find the mass of flour forming one lump.  Now you can start adding the ghee, one tablespoon at a time. Initially, the flour jaggery mixture will absorb the ghee. As you add the ghee, don't forget to continue stirring.

After about 3 to 4 tablespoons of ghee, you will find that the flour mixture doesn't absorb any more ghee. The mixture starts to glisten and looks ready to set. If you pick up a small quantity of the flour mix and roll it into a ball, it will hold its shape.  At this stage add the roasted cashew nuts and the powdered cardamom.  Mix well.  The mixture will be one big mass and the ghee you will find is along the sides.  The flour mass feels like it is slipping.  At this stage, pour it into the pre greased plate.

 Let it cool for a few minutes.  Cut when cool and serve.