Alepak (ginger candy)

Ginger Candy in Marathi
Time: 25 to 30 minutes
Yield: 15 medium pieces


Ingredients:
100 gram ginger roots
1.5 cup sugar (tip 5)
1/2 cup Khova or milk powder
1 tsp ghee

Method:
1) Wash and peel the ginger root. Cut into small pieces. (It will be around 1 cup)
2) Add ginger pieces, sugar and khova into a blender. Blend well and make a fine puree.
3) Keep a steel plate ready. Grease it with some ghee.
4) Heat ghee into a deep saucepan. Add ginger-sugar mixture. Cook over medium-high heat. Keep stirring and do not let the mixture settle at the bottom.
5) Mixture will thicken within 10 minutes. You will notice whitish froth around bubbles. Now within couple of minutes the mixture will be ready to spread. The mixture will gather in the center.
6) Immidiately spread the mixture on greased plate and spread with spatula or greased flat based bowl. Cut into 1 inch squares.
Let it cool down. Separate these vadis, and keep in airtight container.

Tips:
1) Peeling and cutting ginger root into small pieces is important. Ginger is fibrous. Hence, won't get ground well if big chunks are used.
2) Instead of Khava or milk powder, 1/2 cup malai alongwith little whole milk can be used. Incase of using malai, cook the mixture few minutes more as it has more moisture content than Khava/milk pdr to evaporate.
3) During winter time (or in cold regions) spread the mixture on plate once it becomes frothy. During winter, mixture thickens faster. If you cook longer (even for 2 minutes) vadya will become very hard or mixture turns crumbly.
4) Milk, Khava, or milk powder are used to reduce the intense hotness of ginger. Incase, you don't want to add any of these ingredient, still ginger vadi will taste good.
5) Use 1.5 cups of granulated sugar for 1 cup ginger pieces. If using Indian style sugar which has little larger granules, then use 2 cups of sugar for 1 cup of ginger.