Carrot Halva: An Iranian Winter Dessert

It is very popular on cold winter nights in the northwestern Iranian city of Urmia.

Ingredients:

Carrots: 500gr

Flour: 1 cupful

Sugar or grape syrup: 1.5 cupfuls

Rosewater: 2-3 cupfuls

Cooking Oil: 2-3 cupfuls

Cardamom: 1 dessertspoon

Milk: 2 cupfuls

Walnuts or pistachios: as much as needed to decorate the food

Recipe:

Peel the carrots and chop them before placing them in a small casserole. Add milk, so that it fully covers chopped carrots. Put the casserole on heat for 20 minutes. After the carrots get soft and are cooked through together with milk, turn the mixture into porridge.

Then sauté sieved flour on low heat until its smell of rawness is gone. After the flour is sautéd, sieve it again to keep the four from becoming ball-shaped in the halva. Sauté the flour again on low heat. Then add oil and keep stirring the mixture.

After the halva is sautéd, put on the oven the carrot porridge which is already prepared and add sugar. Then mix it until sugar is melted in the carrots.

Afterwards, add rosewater and cardamom. Then remove the mixture from the heat and let it cool down a bit. Then add it to the sautéd flour, which is hot.

While adding the mixture of carrot porridge, rosewater and cardamom, keep stirring the halva quickly, so that it will get thick enough. Now the halva is ready and can be served on a dish and decorated with walnuts or pistachios.