Indian Cooking Challenge - Moong dal Halwa

Right from the time Valli announced the theme for this month's Indian Cooking Challenge , I was planning to make it.....but I finally got around to it only today....the last day of the challenge. The fact that this is super easy to make helped in getting it ready on time.....and as always, I made some changes that made things even more easy for me.

Here is the recipe that Valli asked us to follow:
What you need:
Split (Yellow) Moong dhal - 1 cup
Ghee - 1/2 cup
Sugar - 3/4 cups to 1 cup (as per required sweetness)
Milk - 1/2 cup (Notes from Lataji - instead of water for the sugar, this gives the khoya added taste, Simran's recipe asked for water)
Cashews/ raisins roasted in ghee for garnish.

Method to Prepare:

Soak 1 cup moong dal overnight. Next morning, grind to a paste.

Heat a heavy Kadai, take initially only 1/2 of the ghee and heat it.

Add the dhal and stir continuously, not allowing lumps to form. This part is very tricky as the dhal cooks really fast, irrespective of the ghee.

Keep the heat at the lowest and keep stirring even after the dhal becomes thick.

Add the rest of the ghee intermittently and cook the dhal until aromatic and the ghee starts oozing out.

Meanwhile mix the sugar with water/ milk in a pan and bring to a boil. Add this slowly to the cooking dhal.

Keep the fire low at all times and break lumps if formed while adding the sugar and water/ milk mix.

Cook until the ghee surfaces.

Garnish with cashews and raisins.

Changes that I made:

I added the milk and sugar to the moong dal while grinding. This helped me save quite some time.
The next time I make this, I would probably add some saffron for colour.
This halwa gets cooked really fast....and it is quite important to keep stirring to avoid ending up with a lumpy mass.