Sooji Halwa/Sheero
Super quick and easy semolina pudding/Sooji Halwa/Sheero made out of basic ingredients like semolina, ghee, sugar, saffron, cardamom and nuts within minutes with least amount of efforts.
This sheero is usually made as main Prasad/offering for Satyanarayan Puja. The Satyanarayan Puja is a religious worship of the Hindu god Vishnu. Satya means “truth” and narayana means, “The highest being”. Satyanarayan means “The highest being who is an embodiment of Truth! Hindus perform Sri Satyanarayan Vrat for the divine blessings of health, wealth, prosperity, opulence, education, relief from troubles and sickness. It can also be performed for success in business, career growth, during social functions like weddings, house-warming ceremonies, naming of the children etc.
While growing up in India, I was fortunate to attend this puja few times a year! Being a kid I attended this puja so I can eat as much sheero possible LOL. My grand ma and mom used to make it at home just randomly to go with dal and rice as well since all the kids in the household loved this goodie! Now being a mother of two girls here in America, I want my kids to experience the same as I did. We do this puja in the house or go to a temple to attend it. They get to eat this sheero on days of pooja. Not only that, I make this sheero as dessert for them many times! It is so quick to make and requires very few basic pantry ingredients.
Hope you and your kids like it as much as we do!
Happy and Healthy Eating!
Sooji Halwa
Ingredients
- ⅔ cup Ghee ½ cup if prefer less, but the proper amount would be ⅔ cup
- 1 cup Fine Semolina sooji, rava
- 1 cup Sugar ¾ for less sweetness
- 4 cup Whole Milk or 3 cup whole milk + 1 cup water
- few string Saffron
- ¼ tsp Cardamom Powder
- ¼ cup Chopped Unsalted Nuts cashew, pistachio, almonds
- 2 tbsp Raisins
Instructions
- Mix 1 cups of water and 3 cups of whole milk. Bring it to boil and keep it aside. You can use total 4 cups of milk if you prefer all milk instead.
- Heat ghee and saute semolina and few strings of saffron and cardamom powder on medium heat while stirring continuously.
- The semolina ghee mixture will be very dense in the beginning. As you keep cooking and stirring on medium heat, it will get light and fluffy. Keep cooking until it changes color a little and starts to fragrant. It cane take anywhere from 7-12 minutes.
- Once semolina is light and fluffy and deepens its color to golden, low the heat and slowly add hot milk water mixture. Add it slowly and very carefully while continuously stirring because there will be some splatters.
- Once all the liquid is added to semolina, keep stirring and cooking on medium heat until all the liquid is absorb/soaked up by semolina.
- Add sugar, chopped nuts and raisins to halwa and mix it very well. The halwa/sheero should get runny again due to sugar.
- Keep stirring and cooking on medium heat until all the liquid is absorb/soaked up by semolina again. Once you see ghee separating from the halwa/sheera, it is done!
- Take it off the stove and serve it hot/warm with dal, rice, curry, roti!
