Palada Pradhaman

Pradhaman is a sweet dish in the form of a thick liquid. It is made with white sugar or jaggery to which milk or coconut milk is added and cooked for a long time. [Courtesy : WikiPedia]
Pradhaman is of various types, Jackfruit Pradhaman (chakka pradhaman), aval Pradhaman, Parippu Pradhaman, Palada Pradhaman (Ada Pradhaman) etc.. But for me , the favorite among them is Palada pradhaman:) I love this lovely Pradhaman to bits:) .

Let me give you a short description A short description about its original preparation from "The Hindu" paper on Internet : "What is Onam (the state festival of Kerala) without the Palada Pradhaman? Like the vibrant Malayali cuisine, there are several payasam varieties, but the royalty is the palada pradhaman. There are no shortcuts to making this fabulous dish. Its preparation time is anything between four and nine hours, depending on the quantity. The rice used is a special reddish variety which is washed, dried, and powdered. A paste made of this powder is spread on banana leaves, which are rolled and tossed into boiling water. Once cooked, the leaves are plunged into cold water, and the cooked rice spread removed, and cut fine. This is the ada. Today, thanks to technology and packaging, the ada is available is a dehydrated version, but is not a patch on the fresh, flavoursome original."

As mentioned in the article, nowadays, anyone can prepare this delicacy as we get the dehydrated "ada's" in the Indian stores. I made this recently and I never added any cream, just milk, cardomom, nutmeg and sugar and it was heavenly. Both of us finished it within few minutes of making it. Yumm I still remember the taste of the ada along with the sweetened milk. Mmm can't wait to make it again one of these days:) . Thanks to Priya , I came to know about the availability of Ada in Indian stores as I found the same type of Ada packet in her blog. I also followed her method of cooking Payasam in Pressure Cooker. But it can be cooked in any other vessel, the only thing is , it will take 1 to 2 hours of cooking. Pressure cooking fastens this process.

Here goes the recipe:

Ingredients:

Ada : 1/2 cup
Milk : 3 1/2 cups
Sugar : 1/2 cup or as per your taste
Cardomom powder: 1/4 teaspoon
Nutmeg : a pinch (optional)
Saffron (optional) strands : 2 or 3 strands



How its made:

Soak ada in boiling water for around 5-10 munites or until it is softened a bit but not lost its shape. In the pressure cooker , add milk, ada, and sugar. Pressure cook with the whistle for one whistle. Switch off fire, let the cooker stand like this for some time until all the pressure is released. Then open the cooker and on medium heat, start stirring the mixture, add cardomom powder and nutmeg powder and continue stirring. Stir for 5 -10 minutes or until the mixture starts to thicken.

Remove from fire and add the saffron strands and let it sit for around 5 minutes. Serve it hot or cold , I love it :)

This is my entry for Novel Food: Spring 2008 Edition hosted by Lisa of Champaign Taste and Simona of Briciole .