Wheat and Coconut Halwa

I come from a state where wheat is not the staple grain, in fact the climate there is not suitable for the wheat crop. Now of course everything is available everywhere, but I hear from my mother that in her childhood wheat could only be bought from the ration shops. There were a couple of dishes which were made using wheat, one of them was a dosa where wheat was soaked and then ground with coconut, then there was another deep fried dish which was made using coarsely ground wheat, coconut and jaggery. Today I am sharing a third dish which used wheat as the main ingredient.

Ingredients

250 grams whole wheat,
Half a coconut,
125 grams of powdered jaggery,
2 tablespoons of ghee,
½ teaspoon of powdered green cardamom seeds

Method

Wash the whole wheat well and soak it in clean water for about 4-5 hours. Drain the wheat and grind it to a fine paste along with the grated coconut using about ¾ cup of water. Strain this to remove a thick milk. Again add ¾ cup of water and grind it again and strain to remove thin milk. One last time add about ½ cup of water and grind it again to get the third milk.

Now you will be left with just the husk as the residue. (This will not be used in the dish, I mixed it while making my roti dough to increase its fibre content.)

Take all the three milks’ in a thick bottomed pan and cook it on a high flame till it starts boiling. Once it starts boiling, lower the heat and cook stirring till it starts thickening, be careful at this stage as it will start spluttering.

Once it starts thickening add in the powdered jaggery and half the ghee and keep stirring as you cook this on a low flame. When it starts leaving the sides of the pan add in the remaining ghee and cook for another 5 minutes.

Switch off the heat and fold in the powdered green cardamom seeds. Pour this into a greased thali and let it cool. Once cool cut it into squares.