BADAM HALWA by Nithya Jayakumar

Dear Readers,

Please welcome my dear friend Nithya as our Ugadi special guest-blogger. Firstly, wat makes this exciting is that someone wants to be a guest for the second time J This is a teeny tiny achievement in itself for me, who believed that the blog will being its journey of slow death after all the hype n hoopla J Thanks Nithya for doing me this favour J Secondly, my heartfelt thanks to all those who used all possible modes of comm existing today (chat,phone,email,comments,mail fwds) to pat my back virtually saying how much you enjoy reading the blog.

Nithya and I share a wonderful history that dates back to our college days of first-time crushes (TING!!! Still rings a bell. Strange! actually my heart shud beat faster right? Ok whatever who cares nw :), bunking and running way from profs, getting caught like losers while doing so and still managing to try out luck next time, involved in conversations ranging from absolute nonsense to totally make-sense ideas, eating bhel puri in this tiny store (I got a worm in it once actually..hehe..), besi-besi noodles in another tiny store and creamy pastries n spicy sandwiches in this place called Bun World (it had another name back then..but cant remember L..Gosh ! am getting old L ).

While, Nithya was busy topping her Law Uni (YES YES! check pic below) , I was sweating it out here in HP and we had this brief period of not being-in-touch times. But NOW!!! we are back together only to realize the hopeless romantic in us is still intact and talking nonsense makes total sense one more time ..hehe. So to conclude, this gal is the reason why I am still able to recall coll days with such fond memories and all that followed later. Thanks Gal !

BADAM HALWA by Nithya Jayakumar

Hey Som! Thanks for inviting me to feature on your ever-so-growing popular blog :-) Ugadi habba is just round the corner so I would love to share the recipe to make badam halwa. Ellarigu Ugadi Habbada Hardika Shubhashayagalu!! Badam halwa was the first dish that came out really really well and thus earned me couple of fans (oh yes trust me:-) ), after many disasters in the kitchen:-D

So, here you go....

All you need is:

1. one cup (heaped) almonds

2. half cup milk

3. 1 and a half cup sugar (depends on how sweet ur tooth is :-D)

4. half cup ghee

5. some kesar powder and few saffron

Method:

1. Soak badam in water for about 6 hours. Peel the skin and grind it with milk. Please do not add water at all. It will spoil the taste.

2. In a kadai, take quarter cup of water and add the sugar and make sugar syrup. The syrup must be such that, if u put the syrup on ur thumb n touch it with ur index finger, the string that forms must be about one n a half inches long.

3. Add the ground badam n cook well (takes anywhere between 15-20 mins).

4. Add kesar powder and saffron, mixed in little luke warm milk.

5. Once it is cooked, add ghee and keep stirring till u get a glazed golden colour and the halwa starts leaving the sides of the kadai.

You can add a teaspoon of MTR badam mix instead of kesar powder & saffron and also reduce the sugar quantity to that extent.

Check Video clip below for each of the above step

This is a pic of the same that I tried for Ugadi.