Make Khawa / Khoya / Mawa at home!

Vineela has chosen Milk as this month's theme for Jihva for Ingredients. Not just milk, but all milk products too. That makes it simple, right? Wrong! That gives you so much choice, that you take about a month to decide what your entry for this event will be. That again has a few hurdles. For example, the main ingredient. You realise that you have always *bought* the main ingredient that goes into the dish, that you fancy making for the D-Day.

Well, now the 'you' in the above story is 'me'. (Oh, stop it, Vaish. We're sick of your non-existent humour.) - ignores and continues - And the ingredient in question is 'Khawa or Khoya or Mawa', which are milk solids obtained by evaporating milk. Which is usually done by the neighbourhood Mithai vendor. Nobody makes it at home, at least in the circles that I know. Unless you are living in Germany...

So, that's what I did. I made Khoya at home. Using an uncomplicated, quick method, that I found here.

Recipe for Khawa/Khoya/Mawa

Makes 1 cup.

Ingredients:

1 cup milk powder (I used the variety with 3.5% fat.)
approx. ¼ cup water
a few drops of ghee

Also:

a pressure cooker / steamer &
a metal vessel that fits into it
a piece of cotton cloth (May I suggest an old handkerchief of your husband? ;-))

Method:

1. Take the milk powder into a shallow bowl/dish for kneading. Add a little water.
2. Start kneading, and add water as you go. We want to knead it into a soft dough as that for chapatis.
3. Finish kneading with a few drops of ghee on your fingers. Shape it into a ball. Like so.

Khoya khoya chand...? :)

4. Place this ball in the piece of cloth. Tie the cloth in a bundle. Place this bundle into the metal vessel.
5. Place this vessel into the pressure cooker / steamer and steam for 10 minutes. (Like idlis; without the weight/whistle.)
6. Take the vessel out and let it cool for about five minutes. Untie the bundle.
Khoya is ready for you.

Khoya is well-made, if there are lots of tiny holes inside, like a sponge

Before you use this Khoya in any preparation, a few
Notes:

1. First off, let's not forget that this is just a substiute and not the real thing. You can use this homemade Khoya in almost all preparations that ask for this milk product. However, the dish will not have exactly the same texture and taste that it would, had the real Khoya been used.
2. It retains some of the milk powder smell, much of which goes away once cooked (like when cooked with carrots to make Gajar Halwa).
3. One biggest advantage of it is, that it has much less fat compared to the real McCoy. Sounds nice, no? :)

I am sending this post as an early entry to Vineela for this month's JFI. I posted it early coz I thought it might help those who want to make something with Khoya, but have no access to a Mithai vendor.

Tags: Milk Powder, Dessert, Indian food