I’ve always been a sucker for the sweet buttery taste of Halwa!

Halwa is an Indian dessert made from either semolina or carrots which has boiling milk/water, sugar, ghee (clarified butter), nuts and cardamoms added to it. I’m not a ‘gajar ka halwa’ fan, (halwa made from carrots) and there’ve only been a handful of times when I’ve actually enjoyed it, I much prefer Shuzir Halwa (Sooji Ki Halwa), the semolina version. ‘Shuzi’ was what I called this dish as a child and my mum would make this whenever I wanted.

This is a really quick and tasty way of preparing this dish, thankfully a couple of my children also adore this dish. Some like it sweeter than others and while it is a very rich buttery dish, there’s no reason why you can’t make it a little healthier by cutting back on the ghee which was what I did.

I’ve added food colouring to my halwa to make it look an appetising colour but you don’t have to, you can leave it plain or use saffron should you want to use a natural colouring. You may use other nuts to the ones I’ve used in this recipe (pistachios), almonds, cashew or hazelnuts would also make a really good choice for this dessert. If you enjoy raisins throw in a few of those too, add them to the ghee and fry them along with the nuts.

When I cooked this I doubled the quantities in the recipe because I wanted to make more, that’s why some of the amounts in the photos may be different to the stated measurements. This is so quick to make, if you can’t be bothered to make puris to go with it you can always serve it with ready made puff parathas for an effortless snack/nastha for breakfast or afternoon tea like I did. Hope you all love this Indian treat!

You will need: for Shuzir/Sooji Ki Halwa

1 cup of water (and a splash more)
1 cup of semolina (I used coarse semolina, you can also use fine)
1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of ghee (I used 1/4 cup to make it less greasy and a little healthier)
6 cardamoms (remove inner seeds) OR you may use cardamom powder (to your taste)
orange food colouring (optional)
a handful of pistachios

Method:

Start by boiling 1 cup of water (add a splash more as this evaporates when boiling) in a pan, add a pinch of food colouring and 1/2 cup of sugar (you are seeing 1 cup of sugar because I doubled the recipe).

Remove the inner seeds from 6 cardamoms.

Add 3 of the cardamom husks to the boiling water and leave 3 for later. Let this boil for several minutes then transfer to a heatproof jug/bowl.

Next chop a handful of pistachios. In the same pan heat 1/2 cup of ghee….

….add the 3 remaining cardamom husks and the chopped pistachios. Fry the nuts for 1 minute then add 1 cup of semolina. Toast the semolina for a few minutes, stirring frequently to prevent burning.

 Lastly, add the hot sugar syrup to the pan and stir as you do so to avoid clumping. You’ll notice the pan sizzles and the sugar syrup will be absorbed immediately into the semolina. Keep stirring until all the liquid has been absorbed.