atte ka halwa | the UP counterpart of teacakes...

Halwa is a traditional UP dish that is sweet but not necessarily a dessert. It can be a breakfast for some, yes in the older days it was a quick dish to make on stove tops and was almost equivalent to the cakes we bake today in fancy ovens. I say cakes because of the ghee that goes into  traditionally made Halwa that is only comparable to a cake and not a cereal breakfast. If the content of ghee is lesser, a halwa can be a cereal breakfast in it's composition.

Halwa is definitely not a breakfast dish anymore in our adult lives, with our butts stuck to the chairs all day, but in the childhood days halwa and jalebi was a happy note to start the day on most weekends. Going by what my mother in law tells me, she used to pack halwa and poori in Arvind's lunch box often. I know where his love for halwa and all things sweet comes from. I have to make some halwa every now and then, making just one serving is my solution as I don't like it much and can eat only 2-3 tea spoonfuls at a time.

ingredients...
(1-2 servings)
atta (whole wheat flour) 1/4 cup
ghee 1/4 cup
sugar 2 tbsp or more if you like it sweeter
water 1/4 cup
chopped nuts as per taste
powdered green cardamom or nutmeg if you wish
procedure..

Heat the ghee in a deep pan and tip in the flour into it. Keep stirring on low heat till the flour starts getting aromatic and changes color to pinkish brown. This takes about 5-8 minutes for this quantity.

If making a larger quantity, halwa can be a work for 40 odd minutes, I have made halwa for family get togethers and the aroma of roasting flour makes everyone hungry while the halwa takes it's own sweet time to get made. Once ready it pleases everyone.

Ad the sugar once the flour becomes nicely browned, and let the sugar crystals become caramalised a bit. It will start getting sticky after a couple of minutes. If making large quantity, it may take another 10 minutes. So as soon as the sugar crystals start getting sticky, add the water in a gentle stream. and mixing the halwa mixture steadily, using a spatula with the other hand. The halwa comes together and becomes like a shining dough, keep stirring it till it starts getting a bit crumbly by further dehydrating.

Add chopped nuts, roasted or fried if you wish, mix well and serve hot.

Halwa is never served cold unless it is a carrot or pumpkin halwa. It can be a nice quick snack if you have a sweet tooth.

This kind of dryish crumbly halwa is great with hot milk for breakfast as well. Some people like it a little wet, you would have to not dehydrate it while cooking after adding water in that case.

Making a small amount of halwa is not very tricky and you can always make some for your kids instead of those store bought muffins or biscuits. It is a high calorie and high carb dish but healthier than many of the ready packed food that we hand out to our kids mindlessly.

I have posted an instant besan ka halwa made in microwave and a kadhai made besan ka halwa too. Go have a look if you want besan ka halwa. A step by step mung ka halwa recipe is also posted if you have some time to indulge. Now you know how much loved is halwa at my place.

You know what, I started getting that aroma of halwa being made while typing this. I don't like halwa much but that aroma is one of the favorite food aromas for me. Tell me when are you going to make some halwa for your loved ones?

Cheers...

Event coverage | Philips foodathon...

Bloggers are now attracting the attention of marketing giants like never before. Brands want them to come and see their products, write about them and give feedback. I see a good trend emerging as this could be a useful link between the consumer and the brand. The bloggers themselves are consumers, they use products and do some reviews and general expression of opinions on most products they use. Like I use a certain brand of organic cooking oils and like it so I mention it now and then in my blog posts. But when we are invited for an event where a brand showcases their product we have to be careful in what we see and tell our readers. Or make an opinion for ourselves. After all, the brands make it look like a grand product when they have control over the showcase.

More and more brands are becoming aware of the blogs power of influencing their readers. There are numerous fitness blogs motivating people to get fitter, Fashion blogs with apt advice, beauty and make up blogs, lifestyle blogs and all of them are influencing, motivating and inspiring a lot of their readers. For marketers, there is a lot to tap in this connect of blogs and it's readers.

For us bloggers too, there certainly are a lot of products we would like to know about, as we keep getting queries regarding kitchen gadgets and their working, myself being a food blogger. So I take interest in whatever the brands have to say about their product. after all we all keep looking for better and better kitchen gadgets to work with. Be it a spatula or a microwave oven.

This is the reason I got curious about this event by Philips called Foodathon and my interest grew when I got to know that Chef at Large is a consulting partner. Reached dot on time and found Sid Khullar in a chirpy mood. Was happy to know that he would be addressing us bloggers at the event. Very soon I saw that Hemant Sud, the ace photographer arrived as well. I had heard him talking photography earlier, so that was another plus point for me. Met Ipshita Chakladar of Ipshita's cakes mama bakes and Anamitra Chakladar and had a lovely chat with them.

The event was actually planned very well. The bloggers were scheduled to learn a lot from the masters.  Sid Khullar spoke about blogs and how we connect and learn through blogs and earn through them too. His opinion is always valuable for a blogger. Hemant Sud was again a store house of information for a food photographer and Chef Darren Conole spoke about plating the food, it's elements and colors etc. The aesthetics in food presentation. The things planned in this even were really a blogger's delight.

I wish I could enjoy all this learning in a good way as the Cafe V, the venue partners were plain simple apathetic to the event. The cafe is small and there were more invitees than it could hold.

I wish the beautifully planned event was executed well so we bloggers could take home some good moments.

If the bloggers are invited at a place for four hours and the basics in hospitality are not taken care of, it becomes really difficult to engage in a stimulating discussion that was going on. What I felt, there should have been comfortable seating for everyone so we could listen to things being discussed. I would expect a bottle of water at every table so one doesn't have to depend on apathetic servers (as V Cafe unfortunately had) for basics like water. We were handed out a nice file with itinerary and some loose sheets with pen, a place to sit and note down the tidbits that we learned could have been better.

For example, only about a dozen people could hear what Chef Darren was speaking. Everyone else could not be accommodated around the small dais he was speaking from.

The star of the event was the Air fryer by Philips. Demonstrations were done, some chicken tikka, potato fries and aloo tikki was air fried in front of us and the results were nice. One would like to have this gadget at home to enjoy nice crisp fries without frying. The pleasant surprise that we got there was that Deeba participated in a food plating contest and won herself a Air fryer for herself. I got to know this fryer bakes some nice cupcakes as well. May be Deeba bakes something in this air fryer and we see her posts soon..

A good experience overall but I would expect such events to be organised in a better way. Especially when the organisers are putting in a lot of creative energy in bringing such good things together. I would repeatedly want to attend such events that discuss about blogger's interests apart from displaying products, but would be glad if the venue is a bit conducive of such good ideas.

Anyways, such events are also an opportunity for us bloggers to catch up with each other. That we did and came back home with some food for thought...