Sweetcorn Halwa

Sweetcorn Halwa

Sometime back I watched a cookery contest on a tamil tv channel. Celebrities from small screen contested for the kitchen superstar title. As it was food related, I quite liked the program, however, I do think it was a miserable effort to emulate the likes of Gordon Ramsay and other celebrity chef hosted contest. Anyway, one contestant had made sweetcorn halwa and received great reviews from the judges. The recipes were not made available so I would normally guess what might have gone into the dish and tried some recipes. This halwa is one such recipe and I knew khoya was one of the key ingredients. My difficulty is that I do not get khoya here and that I cannot really find time to reduce milk to khoya consistency in my kitchen. I did take a good shortcut that I had posted earlier and had no regrets. The halwa came out super doper scrummy and I struggled to stay away from it. The mild flavour of sweet corn, the not entirely smooth consistency and the crunch from the nuts were simply wonderful. This halwa does not need an awful lot of ghee so that is a bonus. I used semi skimmed milk powder to make the khoya and having said all that, at the end of the day, it still is a dessert and I have tried to reduce the guilt as much as I can. Here is the recipe...

2 cups sweet corn (I used frozen)

1 cup sugar

1 cup milk powder made into khoya

2 tablespoon ghee

Couple of pinches of crushed cardamom and saffron, optional

Slivered nuts for garnish

Grind the sweet corn to powder. I used frozen corn so it was quite easy to powder. If you are using fresh, try to avoid water to grind and make it as fine as possible. Heat some ghee in a kadai or hevay bottom pan and add the ground corn, stir well. Cook until a nice aroma comes (about 3-5 minutes)

Add the sugar and khoya (grated) and literally just add drops of ghee every now and then. 

Keep stirring well and cook until it leaves the sides and comes together as a ball. This should be another 5-10 minutes or so.

Garnish with nuts, serve.