Tirunelveli Halwa Recipe – Wheat / gothumai Halwa

Tirunelveli halwa is the very famous in Tirunelveli district, Tamil Nadu(also known as Nellai). Halwa means Thirunelveli Halwa/Wheat halwa sold at Iruttu kadai (translates dark shop) at Thirunelveli. Never bought halwa in sweet shops in my history. I rearly have sweets. If any occasion or on my boss request will make Asoka Halwa other than that I never made halwa at home. Once I have started the regional special recipes it is in the 2nd place in my to do list but am publishing it bit late because i couldn’t able make the Tirunelveli halwa recipe video. Aishu is totally busy with exams and also I don’t want to disturb her. Actually to make halwa we need to stir continuously without stopping or taking a rest. I find very difficult to take step by step pictures, but somehow I managed on my own.

I simply followed this recipe video and did some changes only in the ingredients. Like I have reduced the quantity of sugar and the ghee. Initially I thought,  if I reduce the ghee the glossy effect I might not get but trust me I didn’t use much ghee at all so weight watchers note that you can try this recipe and have it happily.

We can make this halwa using wheat berries or with wheat flour. I prefer to use the wheat berries or whole wheat to make this halwa because we are going to extract the wheat milk so we will get more milk if we use wheat berries(whole wheat ) than the wheat flour. Also, I have shared the recipe using the wheat flour if you didn’t get the whole wheat you can try on that method.

Let’s see How to Make Tirunelveli Halwa with step by step instructions:

Step:1
Soak the wheat berries with enough water for 8 hrs or overnight.Grind the wheat berries with some water and extract the wheat milk.again add the grinded wheat berries into the mixie cup add a little water and grind it again. Then extract the milk. You can grind the wheat berries in 2 batches also,make sure that you have grinded it twice so that we can get more wheat milk.Keep this milk for few minutes without disturbing you will find that the thick milk has settled at the bottom and the clear liquid on top.Discard the clear liquid. I got approximately 3.5 cups of wheat milk.
Step:2
Heat the ghee in a pan and roast the cashews, keep aside. Now in the same pan add the sugar and water, let it boil.
Add in the cardamom powder, colour and mix well. Once the syrup thick and it attains the one string consistency  slow down the stove.
Step:3
Now add in the wheat milk and start stirring continuously. Keep the flame in low and stir well. Now add the ghee and stir well.
Step:4
Finally add the roasted cashews and mix well. The ghee will start oozing out.The halwa will look transparent as well.When you take the mixture in the ladle, it should slide and not stick to the laddle. This is the perfect stage to remove it from the stove. Delicious Tirunelveli halwa is ready to serve now.

Tips to get Natural Colour:

1. Heat 3 tsp of ghee
2. Add 2 tsp of sugar and keep stirring until the sugar starts melting and starts caramelizing
3. At one point (within a minute or two), the ghee starts changing color to brown
4. Pour this to the Halwa mixture and you will get the required color naturally.

How to make Tirunelveli halwa using the wheat flour:

1. Take the flour in a mixing bowl, add water as required and knead into a dough as we do for roti/chapati.
2. Add 4 – 5 cups of water till the dough is immersed in water and set aside for 3 hours.
3. After 3 hours, you would see a white covering on the dough, gently with your hands knead the dough so the wheat milk separates from the gluten.For this dish, we have to extract all the wheat milk and discard the gluten.
4. Use a strainer and strain the milk.
5. Add another cup of water to the leftover wheat gluten and knead once more to remove any remaining wheat milk.
6. Once you extract the wheat flour milk then follows the step 2 , 3,4 from the step by step instruction and make the halwa.

4.5 from 4 reviews

Tirunelveli Halwa - Wheat / gothumai Halwa Recipe

 

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Prep time

8 hours

Cook time

40 mins

Total time

8 hours 40 mins

 

Tirunelveli Halwa is a south Indian sweet very famous in Tirunalvelli.Using the Wheat berries or wheat flour we can make this halwa.

Author: Premalatha Aravindhan

Recipe type: Sweets, Dessert

Cuisine: South Indian

Ingredients

• 1 cups Wheat berries + 3 cups water to soak wheat berries
• 2 cups Sugar + ⅓ cup water to make sugar syrup
• ⅓ tsp Cardomom powder
• ½ cup Ghee
• 10-12 cashews
• 1 drop red and 2 drops orange colour

Instructions

1. Soak the wheat berries with enough water for 8 hrs or overnight.Grind the wheat berries with some water and extract the wheat milk.again add the grinded wheat berries into the mixie cup add little water and grind it again. Then extract the milk. You can grind the wheat berries in 2 bathces also,make sure that you have grinded it twice so that we can get more wheat milk.Keep this milk for few minutes without disturbing you will find that the thick milk has settled at the bottom and the clear liquid on top.Discard the clear liquid. I got approximately 2.5 cups of wheat milk.
2. Now add in the wheat milk and start striring continuously. Keep the flame in low and stir well. Now add in the ghee and stir well.
3. Finally add the roasted cashews and mix well. The ghee will start oozing out.The halwa will look transparent as well.When you take the mixture in the laddle, it should slide and not stick to the laddle. This is the perfect stage to remove it from the stove. Delicious Tirunelveli halwa is ready to serve now.

Notes

If you want to try this halwa for the first time, cut the recipe by half.Use only 1 cup of wheat.The yield is really huge.So 1 cup will be more than enough for a family
Use a good quality non stick pan so that it will be easy to stir and also to clean
I got only 2.5 cups of milk from 1 cups of wheat.If you extracted properly with good squeezing and grinding more than 2 times, you may get even more.
I have used the food colour but if you want to make natural colour use the above tip to bring the color.
This halwa will be there for 10 days if we store in fridge.Just heat it in microwave before serving.

3.3.3070

Do try this recipe and enjoy!!! Looking for healthy halwa try this Anjeera halwa.