Ulunthan Kali/Urad dhal Halwa -Indian Cooking Challenge July 2012

For this month of Indian Cooking Challenge(ICC) Valli has chosen ulunthan kali which is a traditional sweet of Tamilnadu.
This sweet is prepared and given to girls especially at the time of puberty to strengthen the spinal cord and back bones.I grew up eating this sweet and my mom and aunt make it with the whole skinned urad dhal and sesame oil,I never made this sweet on my own.
As my mom is here she helped me to make the sweet and it came out very delicious and my kiddo liked it a lot.
Original recipe calls for 1 cup of urad dhal and 1/2cup of rice but mom used both in the same quantity and used palm sugar as sweetner.Here is the recipe........

Ingredients

Ingredient	Quantity
Urad dhal/uluutham paruppu	1/2cup
Raw rice/paccharisi	1/2cup
Palm sugar or jaggery/vellam	1/2cup
Sesame oil(optional)	1tbs
Ghee/nei	2tbs
Cardamom powder/ellakai podi	1/4tsp
Water	2cups
Cashews(optional)	2tbs
Salt	a pinch

Method

                              Dry roast the rice and urad dhal separately in a pan to pink color in a medium flame and powder it to a bit coarse consistency,keep aside.

Heat a pan with palm sugar with  little water and dissolve it,strain it through a filter and set it aside.
Now heat 2 cups of water in a pan,add the sugar syrup and bring it to a boil,once the water is boiling add the rice and dhal powder to it.

Stir it well and cook it till it reaches halwa like consistency.Add the ghee and oil, mix it well,cook it for a minute.

Finally add the cardamom powder and ghee fried cashews,mix it well.

Ulunthan Kali is ready.

Enjoy........................

• Mom suggested adding a tbs of grated coconut also enhances the flavor and taste of the kali.
• Using the sesame oil is purely optional which can be substituted with ghee.
• Both palm sugar and jagerry can be used if you  don't like the taste of palm sugar.