Pal Payasam Recipe (Keralean Rice Pudding)

Paal(Milk) Payasam(Kheer/Pudding) is a rice pudding made in the southern parts of India. In Kerala cuisine there are different kinds of payasams but this is one of the easiest,trust me! Usually this is served when you have a sadya(kerala feast) for a wedding or Onam, I made this recently when we had a get together at my cousin's and my husband loved it. 

The difference between the western rice pudding and the Keralean rice pudding is that Keralites use cardamom as flavouring instead of cinnamon or nutmeg. I have never seen my mom making payasams without cardamom.She uses 'broken' brown rice which is the best but I couldn't get that so I used brown rice. But I have seen people using basmati rice and sona masoori rice. The point is you have to cook the rice in milk till its soft. I will always prefer making payasam with rice which takes a long time to cook beacause I want the milk to reduce down.

Ingredients:-

1/2 cup Rice

2 liters milk

1 can condensed milk

4 Cardamom(1/4 tsp of cardamom powder)

1/2 cup sugar

3 tbsp Ghee 

1/4 cup Raisins 

1/2 cup chopped cashew nuts

Methods

1)Pressure cook rice, cardamom and milk for 20 minutes and leave this to rest for another half an hour, After the resting time is over, mix in the condensed milk. Check for the sweetness and garnish with raisins and nuts fried in ghee

OR

2) In a heavy bottomed pot cook rice with cardamom, milk and condensed milk over medium low flame.  I cooked this for one and a half hours. Keep checking the sweetness of the payasam and add sugar if required. I had to add 1/4 cup of sugar. Fry the raisins and cashew nuts in ghee and mix with the payasam, This is the method I used because I had to double the quantity and my poor lil pressure cooker was not big enough.

Serve chilled!

HAPPY COOKING!