In removing the small carrot pieces from water in my pressure cooker

that I had used for making carrot stock and tasting them, I got the

inspiration due to them still having some decent taste to mash them

and then add some butter, sugar, and ground cardomom. In other words,

I was improvising on carrot halwa!

It seems that this dish is traditionally made in milk, then added

to some oil and fried, with a few additions at the end (ghee, cashews,

almonds, etc.)

Rather than waiting 40 minutes or so for milk to be absorbed into grated

carrots if cooked in a saucepan, how does pressure cooking work with

this dish? One recipe called for turning the heat off after one whistle.

My pressure cooker doesn't have a valve that goes up and whistles, so I

need to judge cooking time by minutes of pressurized cooking time.

i've read that almond milk works in place of cow milk. The technique I used

last night was to cook the carrot pieces first, and then mash them. The

drawback of this is that some of the flavor was lost into the liquid water,

never to be recaptured, but I could do the same thing in a small bowl where

the water would be absorbed into the small pieces, and then I would mash the

carrots. I suppose the grating step allows the liquid medium (any form of

milk) to be absorbed more easily and quickly into the carrots).

I added vegan margerine (the brand name has two words in it containing as

first letters, E and B) into the mashed carrots and it created a smooth and

silky consistency. Adding the sugar added some sweetness. I didn't add enough

ground cardomom to add enough flavor from that spice - next time I might just

add a few whole unshelled green cardomoms for flavor and maybe a little

ground black cardomom. I could see that for a fast carrot halwa, I could even add a little warmed almond milk into the mashed carrots and allow it to cook

for a few minutes.

I've had carrot halwa prepared in various degrees of richness at several restaurants from the most plain, consisting of warmed grated carrots with some sweetness, to halwa that was very rich, tasting like it had been cooked in butter (!) and green cardomom, and was sweetened with loads of sugar and small bits of pineapple (doesn't get much better than that!), maybe some rosewater, too.

Any suggestions for using the pressure cooker to make this, and have you substituted any nondairy milk for the dairy one? How long to pressure cook for?

If this works, next up is a beet halwa. I had it once at a restaurant and it

tasted identical to the carrot halwa except for the mild beet taste in the dish. I would have never thought that beets could be enjoyed in a dessert form.

Carrot halwa is a long process, i dont have the perseverance to cook it. Though recently in India I had loads of it from the "halwai" who puts in loads of "mawa".

Try this one; Carrot Halva It is quick and easy. You don't really need a pressure cooker, though I have given here how to do it, carrots cook pretty fast. I usually make it in a wok, while I am doing something else in the kitchen, it cooks on the back burner, requiring occasional stirring, until almost the end, when I need to fry it on high, to get rid of excessive moisture. I have to try it in a slow cooker one day, to see if that works.