Bottle Gourd Pudding/ Lauki ka Halwa

Thursdays are days when I generally make some sweet as an offering to God. I usually go by the easiest and quickest sweet dish – Semiya Payasam. However, today I thought of making something else. With fresh bottle gourds sitting in my fridge, Bottle gourd pudding/ Lauki ka Halwa seemed to be perfect.

Putting up this recipe on the blog wasn’t really my plan. But hubby’s comment or rather compliment, made me do it. He said “mmm, it tastes as if a professional has made it.” I was like “WOW, this ought to be out there on the blog..!” And besides with Diwali just around the corner, it made total sense to give my viewers a visual treat (well, I hope it is).

Ingredients

Lauki – 1 Cup, grated

Ghee – 1 tsp.

Milk – 1 Cup

Sugar – 6 to 7 tsp. (Can be adjusted as per taste)

Cardamom Powder – ¼ tsp.

Dry Fruits (Cashews/ Sliced almonds/ Pistachios/ Raisins) – 1 to 2 tbsp.

Note: I used just cashews and almonds

Serves 2

Method

1. While grating the bottle gourd, make sure you remove all the seeds.

Note: Don’t worry about the water it retains.

2. Take a saucepan and heat the ghee. Put in the grated bottle gourd and sauté for about 5 minutes.

3. Now add sugar and milk. Keep stirring the mixture until it loses all the water and starts sticking together.

4. In the meanwhile, roast the dry fruits (broken in to halves) by placing them in the microwave for 45 – 50 seconds.

5. Add these nuts and cardamom powder in to the lauki mixture.

6. Mix well and serve hot.

7. Alternatively, after the pudding cools down completely, place it in the fridge on a flat plate for about and hour or two (till it sets) and cut it in to square pieces. That gives you lauki ki barfi.