Onashamsakal !! Happy Onam to you all !!
Onam is celebrated by Keralites irrespective of their religion, culture etc; Onam brings very fond memories to all malayalees and it’s same with me.
If you want to experience the spirit of Onam, you should visit the DH (Darbar Hall) Road in Cochin during Onam. The entire road is filled with the sound of street vendors competing with each other, the aroma of freshly fried banana chips, the fragrance of flowers, the laughter of families enjoying their Onam shopping and what not. You just have to stand at the entrance of the road and the crowd will push you to your destination 
My Onam memories would be incomplete if I didn’t mention my visits with friends, to the Onam fair. We had a tuition class at a tutorial just in front of the DH Road and we used to skip it frequently. Come Onam and we were regular students. We’d be just waiting for the class to get over, so that we could go and hang out at the fair and payasam melas. Am sure every Malayali will have their own share of ’sweet’ memories like these.
Now back to our topic, the star attraction of the Onasadaya, payasam. I guess you can divide payasam lovers broadly into two categories - those who love pal payasam (milk and sugar based) and those who love sharkkara payasam (jaggery & coconut milk based). I fall in the latter.
Though I’ve made a full fledged Onasadaya only once after my wedding, I never compromised on payasams. Since my husband and myself fall into two different categories, I make both pal payasam and parippu payasam. Semiya payasam is his favorite and I should say its the simplest of all.
If you don’t have much time to spare in the kitchen and still want to grab the festive mood of Onam, you can go for this easy and delicious treat
Here is the recipe:
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Onam specials
I was waiting to make this payasam for quite sometime but i couldn’t find red rice here in Bahrain. So this time when i went to India “Paysam rice” was topping my shopping list :). I had tried making pal payasam before in a pressure cooker, for the first onam after our wedding. The taste was good, but the effort was not worth it ( i had a hard time cleaning the cooker as well as the kitchen).
This time i just blindly followed the long method mentioned in Archana’s Spicyana, except for the quantity. I had only 1 litre milk and i was soooo determined to make the payasam today, come what may, i just took the half of what she has mentioned. Here goes the quantity that i used.
- Milk - 4 cups
Water - 3 cups
- Rice - 2/3 cups (i used the red rice)
- Sugar - 1 cup
- Cardamom - 2,3 pods crushed
Cashewnuts - 10 (toasted in ghee)
You can see the method here. This quantity is sufficient for 4, 5 people. Thanks Archana for this beautiful and simple recipe.
Other payasam in this blog:
You can see other payasam recipes here.
The favourite desert of the keralites. You cant stop with just 1 serving.
- Cherupayar Parippu - 200gm
- Jaggery -400gm
- Thick coconut milk - 1 1/2 cups
- Medium thick coconut milk - 4 cups
- Light coconut milk - 4 cups
- Ghee - 3 tablespoon
- Cashenut & Coconut pieces - 50 gm each
Fry the parippu without oil for 5-6 minutes. Wash it well & cook with boiled water. Melt the jaggery by adding 1 cup water. Add the melted jaggery to well cooked parippu & stir well. Add 2 tablespoon ghee to this & mix well. Add light coconut milk & when it starts boiling add medium thick coconut milk. When this mix evaporates and becomes half add the thick coconut milk. Stir well for 5 minutes & remove from gas.
Fry the cashewnuts & coconut pieces in rest of the ghee & add to payasam. Serve hot.
Source:Vanitha
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