Gluten Free in India Part V: Indian Dessert

At MoMo, the hotel’s main restaurant, there was a huge dessert buffet full of a rotating assortment of delicious and beautiful looking Western and European desserts.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t eat any of them but I did walk past them each day.  So thankfully I still managed to have a dessert every few days to satisfy my sweet tooth, including two traditional gluten free Indian desserts.

As one of the desserts I was served as part of a surprise meal Negi Chef prepared, I was given Moong dal halwa.  Now when I ate it, I wasn’t sure what it was but Negi Chef explained it to me the following day.  Moong dal halwa is a grain that is finely ground down with clarified butter and sugar.  It was served with crushed pistachios.  Visually, it didn’t look like much but it tasted really good.  You can only imagine with that much ghee and sugar that it was sweet and not very healthy – but such a yummy treat!

Moong dal halwa - it tastes better than it looks!

Moong dal halwa – it tastes better than it looks!

I also ate kheer a few times.  It is the thin liquidy Indian version of rice pudding.  Personally, I didn’t mind the tapioca version that I tried but I wasn’t a fan of the traditional rice version.  Although it is one of the most standard Indian desserts, to me I didn’t like the texture since it is so liquid.  Being Finn, I am a big fan of thick creamy rice pudding – It’s no Finnish rice pudding that’s for sure!

A big bowl of plain, thin kheer

A big bowl of plain, thin kheer

Often the only treat I wanted was a fresh fruit platter of pineapple and watermelon.  Sometimes they also surprised me by making me macaroons, meringues or mousse as a dessert.  The best was the kiwi mousse, I asked for it so many times after the initial time he made it for me.  I sometimes got large bowls of it, so good.  I know it wasn’t traditional but it sure is nice to have a sweet treat every once in a while (besides my daily sweet lassi!!)