Cheru Payar Payasam / Green Gram Dal Pudding

                           Happy Vishu To All My Dear Friends
We all know that Vishu is a festival celebrated all over Kerala. The most important event in vishu is the Vishukkani which literally “the first thing to be seen on the vishu day post waking up”. As I grew up in Andhra, I didn’t now much about this festival. Later on I knew the importance of this festival and how each and every keralite celebrated this with much fanfare and vigor in Kerala. So I thought of making this payasam for vishu as my Husband likes this a lot. All these years I was thinking of making this payasam as a very hectic process of making coconut milk and boiling the gram dal and so on, but actually this is not much tiring and the end result is yummmmy …:)

Ingredients:

1. Cheru Payar / Greem gram dal- 1cup
2. Thick Coconut milk- 1cup
3. Thin coconut milk- 2cups
4. Sago- ½ cup
5. Jaggery- 1cup
6. Dry ginger powder- 1tbsp
7. Cumin seeds powder (roasted)- 1tsp
8. Cardamom powder- 2tsp
9. Cashewnuts-  few
10. Raisins- few
11. Ghee- 1tbsp

Method:

1. Roast the green gram dal in a skillet till the raw smell disappears and cook this in cooker along with thin coconut milk till soft.
2. Boil 1cup of water and cook sago in it. After it gets cooked, drain of the excess water and wash it in cold water. Keep it aside.
3. Heat jaggery in water till it melts, then strain it using a sieve. This melted jaggery and sago is added to the cooked dal.
4. Add the dry ginger powder, roasted cumin powder and cardamom powder and stir well.
5. In this add thick milk and bring it to slow boil and turn off immediately.
6. Heat ghee in a pan and roast cashewnuts and raisins. Add this to the above made payasam and serve warm.

Note:
To this we can add roasted coconut pieces.

I am sending this to Kerala Kitchen an series hosted by Ria.