Koova Vilayichathu/ Koova Halwa/ Arrow Root Sweet Fudge

Wishing all my readers a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Hope Santa brings you all the gifts you dreamed for. Enjoy the holidays with fun and full of Joy. 

We celebrated Thiruvathria festival on December 22nd of this year. Usually it falls in the Malayalam month of Dhanu (December- January) of every year. Story behind the Thiruvathira festival is that on this day Kamadeva, the mythological God of love got killed by Lord Shiva’s Thirkannu. According to another version Thiruvathira is the birthday of Lord Siva read more from here. Women will fast during that day and skip rice and eat only wheat and root tubers. Mainly use plantains, tubers etc. 

Amma used to make Thiruvathria kali (rice flour and jaggery sweet) and Thiruvathira Puzhukku / Ettangadi which contains eight different vegetables with more tubers such as koorka (Chinese potatoes), Taro (chembu), Kaachil (Asiatic yam), Sweet potato, elephant yam (Telinga potatoes/Suran), Kappa(Tapioca), Red beans, Potatoes and raw banana , and garnished with coconut oil, cumin powder and curry leaves . However, this time I didn’t prepared Kali or Puzhukku. But I made Koova vilachiyathu or arrowroot halwa, as it was wish of my husband. It is also prepared during this day. 

Out of blue moon, he remembered about this Koova Vilayichathu prepared by his mother, even gave me the recipe of what he had tasted during his child hood. When I called my mother-in-law and asked her about the recipe, she told me exactly what my husband had described to me except the quantities required for the dish. This is dish is very easy to make and very tasty. 

Arrow root powder consists of following health benefits like as non-irritating, nutritious diet for people with certain chronic diseases, during recovery from an illness, or for certain internal irritations including bladder irritation. Due to its demulcent properties, arrowroot has been used as a treatment for various bowel complaints. If you wish read more from here.

Due to lot of sweet dishes in the festive season, I used barely enough jaggery to prepare this dish. Usual ratio will be for 1 cup of arrow root powder you need 1 cup of Jaggery. If you have sweet tooth try 1:1 ratio of arrowroot and jaggery. Koova vilayichathu contains arrowroot powder, jaggery with coconut scrapings, teaspoon of ghee, cashews and cardamom powder. While have a bite you can enjoy the crunchiness of coconut and cashew in a pillowy sweet arrowroot. Try this, as it only takes 10 minutes to make. If you want this dish to set like a halwa in shape you would have to wait for an hour for the dish to cool down, otherwise you can eat it warm we as soon as it is prepared. Here goes the recipe. 

One year ago : Plum cake /Rich Christmas fruit cake

Print recipe from here

What you need

 Koova/ Arrow root Flour: 1cup
Jaggery: ½ cup (Increase the amount if you need more sweetness)
Grated coconut: ¼ cup
Cardamom: 2no
Cashew nuts: 10 no
Ghee/Clarified butter: 2 1/2 teaspoon
Water: 1 3/4 cup






How I made

In a small skillet heat 1 teaspoon of ghee and add cashew nuts and fry them until they become golden brown. It takes about 1 minutes and set aside. 

Grease a 5 inch cake pan or thick plate with ½ teaspoon of ghee and set aside.

In a small pan and ¼ cup of water and Jaggery bring it to a boil. Remove from the fire and strain for impurities and set aside. 

In medium sauce pan add arrowroot powder and rest of water and mix everything, so that there is no lumps remain and only uniform runny batter. Heat the watery arrow root batter for 5 minutes with continuous stirring in between once it starts forms jelly like consistency add jaggery water and cook again until it thickens it took about 10 minutes.

When the mixture starts getting thicker and leaves the sides of pan, take and pour it into greased cake pan or thali. Arrange the top of halwa with ghee fried cashew nuts and set aside. 

Leave it for 1 hour, and when it cooled, cut it into desired shapes using a buttered knife so that it won’t stick to the knife.

Enjoy....

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Yield: 10 pieces
Verdict: Yummy
Will you make it again: Yes