Kadala Paruppu Pradhaman | Chana Dal Payasam

Kadala Paruppu Payasam : Onam is around the corner and my dear fellow bloggers keep on posting onam sadhya recipes so I was thinking yesterday to prepare pradhaman at least and post before the festival. Whenever we visit Bhagavathi Amman Temple in Kerala I never miss to taste those pradhamans, since from then it was my dream to make
Pradhaman at home, luckily I got that same perfect texture and taste in my first attempt!!!  I referred Swathi’s space and tried Kadala Parippu Pradhaman today, also I am sharing the recipe with you immediately!!! Before going in to the recipe in detail I wish you all a Very Happy Onam 🙂

Serves – 4-5

Ingredients

Kadala Paruppu/Chana Dal – 1/2 cup
Jaggery – 1 Cup (I took mix of Jaggery and Dark Brown Sugar)
Thick Coconut Milk – 1 Cup ( I use home made coc.milk , if you wish use store bought one)
Full fat Milk or Heavy Cream – 1/2 Cup  (Optional you can use coconut milk itself)
Ground Ginger Powder – 1/2-3/4tsp (Refer below to make ginger powder at home)
Coconut chopped – 2 Tbsp ( if you want reduce or increase the quantity, use copra for authentic)
Ghee/Clarified butter – 1 Tbsp
Cardamom Powder – 3/4 Tbsp
Cashews: 10 Numbers
Water – As Needed

Method

• Soak Chana dhal for at least 30 minutes.
• Cook chana dal with 1 ½ cup water in pressure cooker for 2 hisses and switch off the flame.
• When cooled completely take 1/4 cup of boiled chana dhal and grind to fine paste, if needed add coconut milk or cooked chana dal water to grind to smooth paste.
• In a medium sauce pan add 1 cup of water and jaggery let jaggery melt itself (Pic 1) and drain using a strainer to remove the impurities.
• In the same pan add cooked chana dal with water(around 3/4th cup), filtered jaggery syrup cook in medium flame for 5 minutes and then add coconut milk (Pic 2).
• After 5 minutes add thick milk or heavy cream, ground chana dal paste, cardamom powder, ground ginger/ginger powder (Pic 3) and let it boil for another 5 minutes (Pic 4) in low to medium flame or till it gets thick (Pic 6).

• Switch off the flame and keep aside.
• The consistency is up to you, i made very thick(Pic 6) as we get pradhaman in temples.
• Heat ghee in a small pan add cashew and chopped coconut and fry until they become slightly brown. It takes about 3-5 minutes (Pic 5).
• Garnish the kadala parippu payasam with ghee roasted cashews and chopped coconuts (Pic 6).
• You can either serve it hot ot cold.

Homemade Ginger/Powder

Method

• Grate the ginger and toss it in dosa pan/wok for few minutes, just to get rid of moisture.
• You can use oven also to dry the grated gingers.
• Leave it in room temperature by spreading it over a paper towel overnight or till well dried.

• Next day powder it with sugars (Pic 1) and salt to very fine texture (Pic 2).
• Sieve it (Pic 3) before using in cakes/breads or other recipes (Pic 4).

Notes

1. You can make it watery but this slowly simmered pradhaman tastes great when it is thick in consistency.
2. In 2 hisses the dal cooks well but still it maintains the whole dhal texture in final stage too, so if you want bit mushy allow 3 hisses to cook.