Lauki halwa, or doodhi halwa, is a sweet made by cooking grated bottle gourd down with milk until it turns soft and fudgy. It has no wheat flour and no khoya if you do not want it, and it uses a vegetable the Jain kitchen already trusts. It also deserves a page because it is a good teacher of patience: the dish takes time, and the time is spent in attention.
Serves: 4 to 5. Time: 50 minutes.
Ingredients
- 500 g tender bottle gourd, peeled and grated
- 2 tablespoons ghee
- 2 cups full-fat milk
- 1/3 cup sugar, or to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon cardamom powder
- 8 cashews and 8 almonds, chopped
- A few strands of saffron, optional
Method
- Peel the gourd and taste a piece of the raw flesh. If it is bitter at all, discard it. Grate, then squeeze out most of the water with your hands. Keep the pressed juice aside for another dish.
- Heat the ghee in a heavy, wide pan. Add the grated gourd and cook on medium heat for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring, until it loses its raw smell and shrinks.
- Pour in the milk. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a low simmer. Cook, stirring every few minutes, for 25 to 30 minutes until the milk is absorbed and the mixture thickens.
- Add the sugar. It will loosen the mixture again, so cook for another 8 to 10 minutes until it thickens and starts leaving the sides.
- Stir in the cardamom, saffron and nuts. Serve warm.
Why it follows the rules
The gourd is chosen and looked over. In a kitchen that follows the rules, produce is picked young and firm, and checked as it is cut. The same attention, in a much larger measure, is the whole idea of the practice called jayana, careful conduct, described in the Jain texts: acting so as to harm as little as possible, even in the small acts of the day.
Milk is boiled. Milk that is heated is treated as safe from the standpoint of the rules, and raw milk is kept apart from some foods, as the dwidal rule on the index page explains. Here the milk simmers for half an hour, so there is no question.
No honey, no jelly. Halwa and similar sweets use nothing that comes from bees or animal bones, so a homemade version has no hidden ingredient. Shop sweets sometimes add colours and glazes whose source is uncertain, which is one reason Jain households prefer to cook at home.
Cooked and eaten in the day. A slow sweet is started in the afternoon and finished before sunset. On a day with a fast, it can be the first food after the vow ends, but keep to the time your own vow gives.
Serving
Serve warm or at room temperature, in small bowls. The halwa thickens as it cools and is better fresh. Use the leftover gourd juice in a dal or a kneaded dough, so that nothing is wasted.
Variations
- With jaggery: use grated jaggery instead of sugar, adding it at the end so the milk does not curdle.
- With coconut: add 2 tablespoons of desiccated coconut with the sugar.
- Lighter version: use 1 tablespoon of ghee and cook the gourd in a little water before adding milk.
Related
Frequently asked questions
↳ Is bottle gourd halwa Jain?
Yes, when made as here, with milk, ghee, sugar and nuts. Bottle gourd grows above the ground and is permitted. Check any commercial version for ingredients that are not.
↳ What is jayana?
It is the Jain principle of careful, mindful conduct, a way of doing every ordinary act so that the least possible harm is caused. Looking at vegetables before cooking, filtering water and sweeping before sitting are all examples.
↳ Why squeeze the gourd?
Bottle gourd holds a lot of water, and cooking it down in the milk would take much longer. Squeezing first shortens the cooking and keeps the halwa from turning watery.
↳ How long does it keep?
It is best the same day. Cooked milk sweets spoil quickly in warm weather and Jain households prefer to finish them fresh.