May

7

Doodhi (Bottle Gourd) Halwa

May 7, 2007 |

laukihalwa.jpg

We saw Suma’s recipe at Veggie Platter, and decided that the Doodhi/Lauki/Sorakaya/Bottle Gourd in our refrigerator deserved the royal treatment.

Ours is the microwave version that takes 30 minutes instead of two hours.

We prepared this with one doodhi. We recommend using two, ‘cos the bowl was empty in one sitting. If you double this recipe, increase the microwave time by 30 percent.

This recipe calls for a doodhi-grater. Look around your home. Zero in on your quarry. Tell him/her how you long to spread green gooey goodness around.

You’d love to prepare it, but it needs two hours of slaving over a hot stove, and if only someone would spend five minutes peeling and grating it for you. Sighhhh…

Lay on the guilt and dangle the carr… doodhi in his/her face.

Lazy Person’s Doodhi Halwa.
Serves 2

1 bottle gourd
sugar
cashews
golden raisins
transfat free margarine or ghee/butter (about 2 tablespoons total)
a pinch of salt
rose water
green cardamoms

Take possession of the peeled and grated doodhi and measure it in packed cups. (Peeling is optional. Don’t throw the peels away, use them to make chutney.)

Deposit it in a microwave-safe container. Add a third of the volume of sugar. We used a cup of raw cane sugar for 3 cups of packed doodhi, plus a pinch of salt.

Set the microwave on high for 10 minutes. Leave the dish uncovered. Settle down with the latest issue of National Geographic. When the microwave beeps, check the doodhi and stir it around. You can safely keep it going for another eight minutes. Back to your magazine.
This dish oozes so much liquid, you can’t burn it.

Another beep, another check. After the liquid is down to 1/4 cup, check every three minutes, until you have very little liquid left - a tablespoon or two. We stopped at 20 minutes total. Add 1.5 tablespoons of ghee/butter (no oil, please). Vegans can use transfat free margarine, or skip the fat altogether.

Cook for another four or five minutes until it smells all yummy and looks creamy. You should not see more than a teaspoon of liquid. Take it out, add ½ tsp rose water and three shelled and powdered green cardamoms.

Take another teaspoon of ghee, add 3 tbsps. broken cashews to it. Microwave uncovered on high for 40 seconds. Check at 30. The cashews should be golden. Add them to the halwa. Traditonally, toasted chironji/charoli nuts are added to this dish.
Add 10-15 golden raisins to the same bowl, microwave for 30 seconds (check at 20, they turn to toast in an instant). Add them to the halwa. Mix and serve hot.
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If your doodhi-grater gets nosy and wants to know how you did it in 30 minutes, ask him/her to grate more doodhi (or carrots), so that you can demonstrate.

Did you know?

Bottle gourd flowers in the night time, it needs night-time insects to carry out the pollinating process for setting fruits.

The medicinal properties of Bottle Gourd.

Thank you, Suma. This is our entry for Coffee’s Monthly Blog Patrol at The Spice Cafe.
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35 Comments so far

  1. roopa on May 7, 2007 9:12 pm

    Bee, looks very good!
    i made this too! for coffee’s entry but haven’t posted yet!
    But microwave version looks cool i never thought about that!

  2. Coffee on May 7, 2007 9:43 pm

    LOL LOL !!!!!! Nice post! :)

    Thanks for this lovely entry dear! :)

  3. nandita on May 7, 2007 10:07 pm

    Cool recipe, i like dudhi halva better than carrot! Made a dudhi-beetroot halwa that was lovely pink for diwali, used khoya because of the festive season and it got done in 20 minutes on stove top…this is a delectable indian sweet - your lazygal’s version suits me just fine :)

    me too. doodhi over carrots. - b.

  4. Sreelu on May 7, 2007 10:33 pm

    wow microwave version of Dhoodi halwa, what else can I say except “May god bless you ” :)

  5. Anjali on May 7, 2007 10:54 pm

    Hey J & B nice to see 2 deserts in a row from you. The colors are so festive. BTW when I make low fat halwa what I do is cook in milk and then just about a table spoon of ghee. The purist smell it you know ;). Doodhi halwa is a must in most village fairs as it is so easily available unlike carrots.

  6. Reena on May 7, 2007 11:59 pm

    Who did the grating and who operated microwave? :lol:

    this time i did both. the instructions are for future reference. - b.

  7. Rachna on May 8, 2007 12:33 am

    haa, like i said before, I love the way you write!! looks so yummy and warm, ready to sink your teeth in…mmmmm

  8. sia on May 8, 2007 1:45 am

    LOL…if only i can find dhodhi grater ;)

  9. Reena on May 8, 2007 2:10 am

    bee, from your blog i learnt about ‘a taste of yellow’ so i sent my recipe too. thanks for that :)

  10. indosungod on May 8, 2007 4:13 am

    Bee you made it in the microwave? looks very tasty. My neighbors grow doodhi during the summer and I get about 4-5 real long ones and usually wonder what to cook with it. This is going to be bookmarked.

  11. Asha on May 8, 2007 5:09 am

    Looks good Bee,Micro blasted too!My ajji used to make this,I have never tried it.Enjoy.Great entry for MBP.I have yet to make something!

  12. sana on May 8, 2007 5:09 am

    Bee,

    What a coincidence!! I made dudhi halwa for my husband’s b’day - but the two hour version with condensed milk, charoli and saffron :)
    We definitely liked it better than gajar halwa. Next time I will try your way.

  13. Anonymous on May 8, 2007 7:59 am

    looks great Bee, K was admiring it for atleast 10 minutes. He is a dessert freak, we made lauki kofta last week and so this time its halwa.

  14. Trupti on May 8, 2007 9:14 am

    This is one of my childhood favorites…..no such luck getting a fresh doodhi here, I’ll stick to my butternut squash and carrots instead…..

    Thanks for the comment, bee….Mohanthal is made of Besan Flour and a Sugar syrup and is different from Sukhadi, made from Whole Wheat flour….are you thinking of “Magaj” - the one made with just ghee,besan and powdered sugar?

    don’t know. i was thinking of a yummy gujju sweet that was my mom’s favourite. it looked like your sukhadi, but i think it was mohan thal. tons of ghee and very aromatic. - b.

  15. richa on May 8, 2007 9:15 am

    yummy looking halwa. I once ate this at a friends place & she added something called ‘kapuram’ instead of elaichi, had a nice aroma.
    thanks

    ‘karpuram’ is cooking camphor. they use it a lot in tamil nadu. - b.

  16. shilpa(aayisrecipes) on May 8, 2007 9:58 am

    This is my fav sweet dish Bee. We make this with jaggery and the sugar version is made hard and called khadi(burfi). I tried making it here couple of times but didn’t get it perfect. Your pic looks so tempting…I will look for doodhi today in India store. Thanks Bee.

  17. musical on May 8, 2007 11:04 am

    Aha! so you finally did grate doodhi ;) see, you are not lazy :-D microwaving stuff is my favorite time saving trick. rose water might just do the trick for me into having some halwa because this halwa is made without milk and somehow i hesitate having sugary stuff when its not milky :). btw, i have no idea why this didn’t show up in my feed reader!! you mentioned that there will be some proof of your so called laziness ;) on Tuesday and i was waiting…..am glad i check blogs otherwise too :).

    add milk then. gosh, you punjus have to add lactic contaminants to everything. :cry: you may like this site. :D - b.

  18. mandira on May 8, 2007 11:32 am

    doodhi halwa looks great b. and made in a microwave… yummy. Also, your green papaya salad looks delicious. Am going to try a version of it.

  19. pelicano on May 8, 2007 11:44 am

    I just bought my first dudhi ever yesterday… to make Musical’s thingy, now it looks as if I’ll need to find another… better than gajar halvah you say?!

    Does this plant have white flowers that smell exquisite like snake gourd?

    you ask too many difficult questions, pel. :-) don’t know a thing about the flowers. - b.

  20. Suma Gandlur on May 8, 2007 12:52 pm

    Thanks for trying doodhi ka halwa. That was my first attempt and I did not follow any recipe. Did it on my own. Later, from other sources, found out that halwa is made using condensed milk.
    BTW, it did not take me 2 hours to prepare this halwa. I think that carrot halwa takes more time compared to this one.

  21. musical on May 8, 2007 12:58 pm

    Bee, sweetie! here’s some update ;) i hate milk :-D err…..hate is a strong word for anything! sorry! i just recently (2 yrs. ago) started drinking milk as such, and i still need contaminants in milk like mocha etc! the problem with me is that i get saturated with sugar very fast!! real fast. One kaju katli and i am full! But for barfi 2-3 slices are fine. I am not a big fan of sweets…..my sweet consumption is rectricted to festival. At home the only desert is fruit and an occasional ice-cream. But yes, Punjus do make two types of gajar halwa, with milk and without milk ;) and for this post, i meant that rose-water would give the much needed refreshing taste, so i don’t need to add milk :-D

    why did you start drinking that stuff? i hated milk and still hate it. :D - b.

  22. musical on May 8, 2007 12:59 pm

    Oh! i meant dessert :)

  23. beens on May 8, 2007 2:55 pm

    wonderful recipe:)need to know what a bottle gourd is, now!

  24. Recipe Finder on May 8, 2007 6:25 pm

    Nice halwa variety I have come across today. I hope you enjoy making halwas… LOL

    I have seen this another halwa variety known as Banana Halwa. Hope you love them too.

    Good recipe and picture bee.

  25. Sharmi on May 9, 2007 6:19 am

    I too loved this recipe when I saw it in suma’s blog. will have to try it out. looks amazing.

  26. sunita on May 9, 2007 7:31 am

    Desserts, desserts…I’m really going to be tempted now…looks glorious and of course, royal…

  27. pelicano on May 9, 2007 10:05 am

    Bee and Surili, I don’t drink milk either, unless it’s very highly contaminated… haven’t since I was 5! This recipe meets the requirements! ;-)

    i need to add milksucks.com to the blogroll. - b.

  28. Manasi on May 10, 2007 9:06 am

    Looks good bee!! I have never tried the MW version! Thanx!

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  30. Kiran on June 3, 2007 8:49 am

    Hey Bee, I have recently discovered the world of food blogs, I love reading your blog :) Tried your doodhi ka halwa MW recipe, for some reason, the doodhi didnt cook well, it became too sweet (maybe becoz I used regular sugar instead of cane sugar and stuck to your proportion) and it took a long time (maybe my microwave wasnt powerful enough), at the end, I finally added milk and cooked in on the stove top :(( Sigh..anyways we have delish halwa to eat in the end :)

    are you in india, kiran? sugar in india is much sweeter than sugar here. - b.

  31. Kiran on June 3, 2007 11:20 am

    No, I am here in USA, I am assuming raw cane sugar is different from regular sugar?

    the sweetness level is about the same. i guess some dudhi have more water content and less concentrated flavour than others. - b.

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