Paasi | Payatham Paruppu Payasam | Moong Dal Kheer | SNC challenge

 

This months SNC challenge has been given by +Divya Pramil (from You too can cook) herself, the very talented lady who started this event last year. We have now many new wonderful bloggers who have joined the  teams and the competition between the two teams – North and South, has now heated up.  Want to join the team? Check it out here

I am from the northern team.

 

Divya gave us a dish called Passi Paruppu Payasam. ‘Payasam’ (kheer in Hindi) is a milk based pudding. Kheer is one of the most popular dessert served in the subcontinent. It’s made up of milk, sugar and ingredients like rice, wheat or vegetables like carrots.

But this kheer is made with dal – a first for me. I have never made kheer with any dal, so it was very interesting for me. We Bengalis cook a lot of green gram dal or Mung dal. It is specially famous for its halwa in the north. But I have never made a milk pudding with it.

 

This kheer has green gram or mung dal, and a mixture of coconut, cardamom and jaggery. Jaggery is unrefined sugar that is obtained by boiling and vaporizing whole sugar cane. It is also obtained from solidifying date, palm.

 

 

What you need:

• Split green gram dal / Yellow moong dal / Paasi paruppu – 100 gram (1 cup)
• Raw rice/Pacharisi – 25 grams ( a little more than 1/4 th cup)
• 3 cups of water
• Jaggery ( I used liquid date jaggery) – 200 grams
• Cardamom pods – 3 (or) Cardamom powder – 1/4 tsp
• Grated coconut – 2 tablespoons (or) Coconut pieces – 12 small pieces (1/2 inch long)
• Milk – 1 cup (150 ml)
• Cashew nuts – 10 to 15
• Ghee – 1 tablespoon

Instructions:

Wash and soak the dal and rice of 15 minutes.

Transfer to a pressure cooker, then pour 300 ml of water, place the whistle or regulator on the lid and secure it. When the first whistle blows, reduce the flame, and cook it for 10 minutes.

Let the pressure drop, and then open the lid. Mash the dal and rice till it’s nice and gooey.

Add milk, and put it back on flame. Stir and mix well. If you feel the dal is still thick, you can add a little more water. Add the mixture of grated coconut and cardamom powder.

 

grated coconut

cardamom

add and stir

 

Now add the jaggery slowly. Mix well. (See notes for date jaggery).

 

 

Let it cook for another minute or so. Keep stirring and make sure the flame is low.

In a separate pan, heat ghee. Add cashews as the ghee starts melting and fry them till golden. Don’t let the ghee get smoking hot else the cashews will burn and die.

 

 

Add this pan of ghee with cashews in it into the dal.

 

Mix well and serve .

Notes:

Coconut: I used frozen grated coconut thawed. If you are using fresh coconut, then grind it. For already grated coconut, use it as is.

Soaking the rice and dal cuts down on cooking time and makes it soft.

When mixing, make sure there are no lumps.

Date jaggery: Instead of cane sugar jaggery, I used date palm jaggery which is a speciality of Bengali cuisine. Harvested and prepared primarily during the winter season, liquid date jaggery – also called Khejur Gud – has a sweet but pungent taste that gets addictive. It does not have a lot of shelf life but can stay longer in colder place.Eventually it acquires an alcoholic tinge which can be unpleasant to some.

 

When adding to milk, it’s important to bring the temperature of the milk down as the acid in the jaggery can curdle the milk. Hence, I added the jaggery after I added the coconut, and added it slowly while it was on a very low flame. I din’t cook it long after. As it is in a liquid form, it dissolved immediately. Check for sweetness and add more if required.

 

 

I also added some saffrom for the decoration purpose. Other than visual interest, adding saffron will not change the taste as jaggery has a very distinctive flavor and easily over powers saffron.

 

 

If the kheer gets too thick as time goes on, simply add some milk and heat it up. Don’t add too much, you don’t want it runny.

 

Personally, I loved drinking it out of the glass. The coconut crunch mixed with cashews with the sweet dal base was amazing. Thanks Divya, I really enjoyed learning how to make {assi Paruppu Payasam.