Onam special recipes to serve to invited and uninvited guests

Onam festivities keep one busy so you want festive desserts that take little effort and don’t keep you in the kitchen the whole time while sweating away. So, we have some simple recipes to serve guests, especially if they love their regional sweets. We recommend at least one Onam special sweet among the few recipes mentioned here. Your guests will certainly appreciate a home-cooked dish.

1. Pasi Parippu Payasam

(Serves 8)

Ingredients

• 320 gm moong dal
• 200 gm jaggery (adjust to taste)
• 460 ml milk
• 1.4 liter water or milk, as needed
• 60 ml ghee
• 4 cardamom powder
• 16 cashews broken into pieces

Instructions:

1. Add a little ghee to a kadhai and fry the moong daal until both release an aroma. Be careful to not let it brown, it burns quite quickly.
2. Transfer to a pressure cooker, pour around 1.4 liters of water or milk and pressure cook the moong daal until the third whistle goes off. Milk gives you a richer payasam.
3. Open the lid after releasing the trapped air, then mash away and add powdered jaggery.
4. Cook with the top off, on low flame for 2 minutes. Add the cardamom powder and cashew and stir to thicken the payasam.
5. Let it boil in low heat adding milk or water as required to make a thick or thinner payasam.

2. Paal Payasam

(Serves 10)

Ingredients:

• 2 litre milk
• 3-liter water
• 100 gm raw rice, washed
• 200 gm sugar
• 30 gm cardamom powder

For Tempering

• 4 tsp ghee
• 16 cashew nuts, broken

Instructions

1. In a big heavy-bottomed pan, pour the water and milk and let it boil on medium heat. Once it boils, add the well-rinsed rice to it. Keep cooking it on medium flame.
2. The milk mixture will start evaporating and reducing in volume. The milk mixture would have approximately reduced by half after 30-40 minutes.
3. After about one hour and 15 minutes, the mixture would have become creamy in color and thicker in consistency. Add in the sugar and mix well. Let it boil for two minutes. Switch off the flame and add in powdered cardamom. Mix well to combine.
4. Heat ghee in a pan and add in the broken cashew nuts. Fry on low flame until the nuts are slightly golden. Add it to the pal payasam.

3. Ada Pradhaman

(Serves 8)

Ingredients

• 155 gm rice ada, readymade
• 400 gm jaggery, crushed
• 340 gm grated coconut, heaped
• ¼ tsp salt
• 4 tbsp ghee
• A handful of cashews
• A handful of raisins
• 4 tbsp coconut, cut down
• 4 cardamom powdered
• ¼ tsp ginger powder
• ¼ tsp roasted cumin powder

Instructions

1. If you purchased a bunch of large pieced Ada, break it down into small pieces. Measure around 1 cup or 155 gm. Soak it in water to hydrate.
2. Add the freshly grated coconut in a bowl and slowly pour 250 ml of water while blending. Strain squeezing the coconut to extract a thick coconut milk.
3. Keep all the liquid aside. Add double the amount of lukewarm water — about 500 ml — and then add the solid coconut bits into a blender before grinding them.
4. Strain out the second batch of coconut milk into a separate bowl. This will be thinner. Squeeze out the milk from the coconut straining to remove the solid fibrous part.
5. Boil one liter of water in a pot. Add the soaked Ada into it and cook for five minutes, stirring occasionally. The Ada will soften substantially but hold form.
6. Drain the water and wash the Ada to strip off its stickiness.
7. Take a saucepan and heat 200 ml of water with jaggery until it dissolves. Strain to remove any solid bits and set this aside.
8. Heat ghee in a nonstick but deep pan on medium flame, and fry cashews until they change color slightly. Then add the raisins and fry them until they puff up. Remove the fried fruits and nuts mixture from the ghee and set aside.
9. In the same pan with the ghee roast cut down coconut bits, and let them dehydrate until they turn crisp and golden like toasted coconut flakes. Remove from pan, and set them aside.
10. Add the rice ada into the ghee and quickly stir to coat then follow it up with the jaggery syrup. Let it boil for two minutes.
11. Reduce the heat to low, add the thin coconut milk extracted earlier, and stir to mix. Let it simmer for a few minutes, and then add the thicker coconut milk. Mix and let it boil at low flame and then switch it off.
12. Add cardamom, cumin and ginger powder; stir to combine. Then add the roasted cashew, raisins, and toasted coconut to serve.