Dulce De Leche: South Indian Style (Thiratti Paal)

Thiratti Paal is similar to the Caribbean version of Dulce De Leche.  At core it is the same  sweetened milk, it is dense, textured and chewy and  therefore eaten straight. The process of its preparation is somewhat different. It is made from scratch with plain milk and sugar is added only  at the final stage of cooking.

It requires just three ingredients and the prep work is minimal. But it is not a quick dish to prepare and it requires a lot of your attention. At the end, when you pop a spoonful of thiratti paal into your mouth and taste the sublime sweetness of it, you will not grudge a single second that you spent in preparing it. Be warned. You will be tempted to consume a lot of it in one sitting!

Thiratti Paal (low calorie version)

Preparation time: 3 minutes
Cooking time: 2 hours

Ingredients

Low fat milk: 1/2 gallon
Sugar: 4 tablespoons
Ghee: 3 tablespoon
Cardamom seeds from 4-5 pods

Notes:

1. You will need to use an aluminum-clad dutch oven pot to cook the milk. The thick bottom will keep the milk from sticking to the bottom and burning.
2. On another post, I have described how to make  ghee. Ghee is added towards the end which enables the thickened milk to solidify and provides the richness to balance the sweetness of the sugar.

Instructions

1. Pour milk into the pot and begin heating on medium flame. Initially, stir the milk every ten minutes or so to keep it from sticking to the pot. But as the milk thickens, you will have stir more frequently and towards the end continuously. Make sure the milk does not boil over. See photos below.

2. As the milk thickens, it will slowly turn into a nutty brown color. After an hour and a half, the milk would have thickened and reduced to 1/4 of its original volume. At this point, add sugar and one tablespoon of ghee.

3. Continue to stir and periodically add some ghee. As you keep stirring the milk, it will slowly congeal into a solid mass. Turn the heat off and allow it to cook more in the residual heat.

4.  Transfer into a bowl and sprinkle with cardamom.

Enjoy!