Tamil & the South · Dessert
Paasi Paruppu Payasam
- Intermediate
- 35 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, a sweet edge rounding the corners, closing toasted and warm.
Ingredients
- 150 g moong dal (paasi paruppu)
- 30 g ghee
- 400 ml water, for cooking the dal
- 200 g dark jaggery (vellam)
- 100 ml water, for the jaggery
- 400 ml thin coconut milk (second extract)
- 150 ml thick coconut milk (first extract)
- 1/2 tsp green cardamom, ground
- 1/4 tsp dry ginger powder (sukku)
- 20 g cashews
- 15 g fresh coconut, in slivers
- A pinch of salt
The skills inside
Allergen screen
Found: dairy · nuts
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Dry roast the moong dal in 10 g of the ghee over low heat, stirring, until it turns a shade darker and smells like roasted nuts.
- Cook it in the 400 ml water until soft and about a third of the grains have collapsed, so the payasam carries both body and texture.
- Melt the jaggery in its own 100 ml water and strain out the grit, then stir it into the dal off the boil and cook 3 minutes until it smells caramelly. 3 min
- Pour in the thin coconut milk and bring it only to a tremble, 3 to 4 minutes, until it thickens enough to coat the back of a ladle. 4 min
- Kill the heat, wait until the pot stops steaming, then stir in the thick coconut milk, cardamom, dry ginger and salt.
- Fry the cashews and coconut slivers in the last of the ghee until golden and pour them over.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Roasting in a hot oven 56 recipes
- The oven was fully up to heat before anything went in, given time beyond the indicator light rather than judged by it.
- Every piece has air around it. Nothing touches its neighbour and nothing is packed to the edge of the tray, because crowded food steams itself in its own moisture and never browns.
- Colour is even across the whole tray, the tray having been turned at least once: no pale row at the back and no dark row at the front.
- It came out BEFORE the target temperature, not at it. Carryover keeps driving the inside up by several degrees after it leaves the oven, and that rise is part of the cooking rather than an error in it.
- The temperature was read at the coldest part rather than the easiest one to reach, and read again after the rest.
Where it goes wrong The tray was crowded, or the oven was not truly up to heat. The food releases steam faster than a cool box can carry it away, so it sits pale and slack, and the extra minutes spent chasing colour take the inside well past where it should have stopped.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Tawny Port
- Also Right
- PX Sherry or bourbon
- From the Taps
- Barleywine
- Zero-Proof
- Cold-brew coffee
Caramel echoing caramel: oxidative aging built the same flavors into the glass that the pan built into the plate.
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