Tag Archives: Sweets

Recipes: Paruppu Payasam aka Moongdal Payasam

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A very simple traditional recipe which does not take much time to prepare, I made this payasam the day after Avani Avittam, when S and BB had to say the Gayatri Japam 1008 times. It is traditional to make a sweet on this day, and since I didn’t have much time in the morning, I decided to go with this simple and tasty sweet dish.

Paruppu Payasam

Ingredients:
1 litre milk, boiled and cooled
1/3 cup moong dal
10-15 cashewnuts, halved
¼ to ½ cup powdered Jaggery or brown sugar
1 tbsp ghee
1/8 tsp cardamom powder
Water as required

Method:
Heat a pan and once the pan is warm, dry roast the moong dal till you get a a lovely fragrance. Make sure you don’t over-roast it and burn it. Remove from the pan and keep aside.

Fry the cashewnuts in the ghee until they are nice and brown and keep aside.
In a small pressure cooker or a container which you can put inside the cooker, mix the roasted moong dal with some milk and water and pressure cook it for some 3-4 whistles. Open the cooker when it cools down and lightly mash the dal.

If you are doing this on a stove top, the method is the same, only keep an eye on the dal when it is cooking and top up milk or water as needed and then lightly mash the dal.
Once the dal has been mashed up a bit, add in the powdered jaggery and mix well.

Put this back on the flame and then add the balance boiled and cooled milk and cook on a low flame for another 5 minutes until the milk, dal and jaggery gets completely mixed together.

Now sprinkle the cardamom powder and the fried cashewnuts along with the ghee.

Do a taste test and serve hot or cold. If you are making this as an offering, then of course, you can’t taste it. We prefer eating this cold as I feel this enhances the taste, but this is personal preference.

You can also make this with only milk to get a richer taste. Also some people use coconut milk plus normal milk, but I don’t make this version.

Recipes: Almond Cashew Pudding or Badam Kaju Kheer

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The day S was supposed to fly off for his Sabarimala pilgrimage, I wanted to send him off with something sweet. Since he was flying in the morning, I also wanted to make something quick. This Badam Kaju Kheer is that perfect recipe.

Badam Kaju Kheer or Almond Cashew Pudding

Ingredients:

  • 1 litre full cream milk
  • 20 almonds
  • 20 cashewnuts
  • 5-6 tbsp sugar
  • 1/4 tsp cardamom powder
  • 2 pinches saffron strands
  • 1 tbsp ghee

Method:

  • Soak the almonds and cashew nuts in hot water for 15-20 minutes. When they cool, peel the nuts and keep aside.
  • Chop around 5 each of almonds and cashew into slivers and keep aside.
  • Blend the balance nuts together with some milk to a smooth paste. Keep aside.
  • Boil the milk in a pan and when it comes to a rolling boil, lower the heat and stir for around 10 minutes to thicken the milk.
  • Add the sugar and the almond cashew paste and stir well. Let it come to a rolling boil.
  • Now add the saffron strands and cardamom powder and stir well. Remove from the fire and keep aside.
  • In a small skillet, add the ghee and the slivered nuts and stir until the nuts are brown. When the nuts turn brown, drain from the ghee and garnish the pudding with the nuts and some strands of saffron.
  • Have this hot or cold, but I feel cold is better as it tends to thicken some more. If you find the pudding too thick for your taste, dilute it with some milk.

Pal Payasam

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Since yesterday was Diwali, here’s a sweet recipe to sweeten your lives. Happy Diwali folks!

As the name suggests, it is a milk kheer or milk sweet. In its very basic form, this is the simplest of the south Indian sweets and hardly needs 3-4 ingredients to make. It’s fairly easy to make with the only effort being in reducing the milk.

Pal Payasam

Ingredients:

  • 1-litre milk
  • 1 tbsp basmati rice (or any long grained rice)
  • 4-6 tbsp sugar
  • 1 tsp ghee
  • A pinch of cardamom powder (optional)

Method:

  • In a large pan, boil the milk and when the milk starts to boil over and bubble, reduce the heat and continue to boil the milk.
  • In a smaller pan, heat the ghee and fry the rice for around 30 seconds.
  • Pour the rice into the boiling milk and keep stirring till it reduces to half the original quantity.
  • When the rice has completely cooked, add the sugar and the cardamom powder (if you are using it).
  • At this point, you can also use a few strands of saffron as well as some fried cashew nuts and raisins.
  • Continue boiling until the sugar gets absorbed into the milk.
  • Switch off the flame and serve hot or cold.