Thirunelveli Halwa with oat milk/ திருநெல்வேலி அல்வா ஒரு மாற்றத்துடன்

Hello all,

Wishing you all very Happy Deepavali/ Diwali in advance! Let's begin this Diwali season with a sweet recipe.

The city of Thirunelveli in Tamil Nadu is well-known for its specialty sweet "Thirunelveli Halwa", not only that, there is a famous dialogue that says "Thirunelvelikke Halwa waaa"!

There was an article written by Kalwyna Rathod in Femina.in , published on July 27, 2021. It was about the different types of wheat and its qualities, very well explained. You can read the article to gain more knowledge about wheat.

The halwa is typically made with sambaa godhumai, a premium variety of whole wheat grain. The grain is soaked overnight, then ground to a thick paste and then milk is extracted from this pulp, by filtering it.

I have used the quick cooking steel cut oats instead of wheat. I did not soak the oats, instead I powdered the oats, without roasting it. If you are going to use the powdered oats for ladoo or burfi, you need to dry roast it first and then use it in the recipe. But for this halwa, since you need to extract oat milk, you should not roast it.

In the picture below, I have shown the steel cut oats and the powdered oats as well.

Half a cup of unroasted steel cut oats will yield little more than 1/2 cup of oats powder.

You will need

Powdered Oats - 1/2 cup

White Sugar - 1 cup

Cardamom - 4 pods or 1/2 tsp of powdered cardamom

Edible Camphor (powered) - a dash

Ghee / Clarified butter - 1/4 cup

Water to make oats dough - 1/8 cup

Water to soak and extract milk - 1 cup for the first milk + 1/2 cup for the 2nd milk, 1/4 cup for the 3rd milk

Add 1/8th cup of water to the oats powder and make a firm dough

Now pour 1 cup of water on the dough and leave it aside for 4 hours.

After 4 hours, crush the dough nicely and extract the milk by filtering it as below.

Now add 1/2 cup of water and extract the 2nd milk. When done, add 1/4 cup of water and extract the 3rd milk. Mix all the milk together. after extracting, only the little pulp will remain from which you cannot extract more milk. Just discard it!

Now heat a thick bottomed pan and 3/4th cup of sugar and 1/4 cup water and save the remaining 1/4 cup to make caramelized sugar syrup. You need not look for any string consistency for the sugar syrup, it just has to be dissolved. Once the sugar has dissolved, add the oat milk and cook in low heat.

Initially, it will look like milk, then it will turn into a porridge (கூழ்) consistency.

Keep stirring in low flame so that the mixture doesn't stick to the bottom and get the burnt flavour. It will take about 25 to 30 mintues from when you pour the oat milk until you get the halwa ready.

Now in a separate pan on another stove, add the 1/4 cup of sugar and start stirring in low flame , until you get a honey colored syrup .

Now, pour this into the oat milk mixture and stir well continuously.

Now keep stirring continously and incorporate the caramel into our oat milk mixture.

Now, we have to start adding the ghee a tbsp at a time. It is about 20 minutes later from the start time.

At the 28th minute, add the cardamom powder and edible camphor and mix well. The halwa will not stick to the bottom of the pan and you will be able to fold it easily, like in the picture below.