The winter date halwa of Sindh and the Punjab, dates cooked down slowly in ghee and milk with almonds, cashews, and cardamom until dark, dense, and glossy
Origin: Khairpur, Sindh, Pakistan
From the journey of Date.
Khairpur district in northern Sindh grows the greater part of Pakistan's dates, and its variety, the Aseel, is dried hard into chuhara and sold the length of the subcontinent. That hard dried date is the form South Asia actually cooks with, and this halwa is what it becomes in a Sindhi or Punjabi kitchen in the cold months. The method is the standard Indian halwa method applied to fruit rather than to flour, semolina, or a vegetable: the dates are chopped and cooked slowly in ghee until they break down, then let down with milk and reduced again, over and over, until the paste leaves the sides of the pan and the ghee comes back out of it. That last moment, when the fat separates and pools at the edges, is the test every South Asian cook uses to know a halwa is finished. It is a winter and a strengthening dish rather than a party one. Dates, ghee, and nuts are what is given to a woman after childbirth in the North Indian and Pakistani panjiri tradition, and the same logic puts this halwa on the table in December and January, when it is regarded as warming in the humoral sense that still governs a great deal of everyday South Asian eating. Dates reached the Indus more than four thousand years ago, on the Gulf shipping route that Mesopotamian texts record as the trade with Magan and Meluhha; stones turn up at Mohenjo-daro, eighty miles downriver from the Khairpur groves. Across the Rann in Kutch the same palm gives the Gujarati kharek.
Khoya, the milk solids reduced to a dry crumb, is sold by South Asian grocers and gives the proper density. Full-fat milk powder is a fair stand-in; ricotta is not. Aseel dates from Khairpur are widely sold in Pakistan and in South Asian shops abroad. A Medjool works but is sweeter and softer, and the halwa will need slightly less milk. In Gujarat the same dish is made with kharek and rather more coconut, and in Punjab a spoonful of ground melon or poppy seeds sometimes goes in with the nuts. Ghee is not substitutable here. Oil makes a halwa that tastes of oil, and butter will burn at the temperatures the dates need.
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