While palada pradhaman uses the same ada, the process for making this jaggery-based payasam is more tedious but with good reason. It’s way more delicious and you can make it vegan by omitting the ghee added to it! It’s coconut milk all the way and we made some fresh coconut milk for ada pradhaman. You need coconut milk with two levels of thickness (ideally three), also called onnaam paal and rendaam paal in Malayalam.
Ada Pradhaman is delicious served warm at the end of your Onam Sadya right on the banana leaf or you can serve it warm or chilled in a glass with a spoon so you can scoop up the ada as you go. Talking about this is seriously making me homesick!
Note: If making coconut milk at home, you can follow instructions in my post on how to make coconut milk at home. If using store-bought coconut milk, dilute the coconut milk by adding equal amounts of water to get the thinner coconut milk or rendaam paal.
If you like jaggery-based payasams like me, try this parippu payasam or payar payasam too. Browse more Onam Payasam Recipes here.
KERALA ADA PRADHAMAN RECIPE
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Serves 6-8
Recipe Source: Amma
INGREDIENTS:
100 gm of rice ada
250 gm of grated jaggery
5 cups of thin coconut milk (rendaam paal)
1 cup of thick coconut milk (onnaam paal)
2 tbsp of ghee
1/4 tsp of cardamom powder
1/4 tsp of roasted and powdered jeera (cumin)
1/4 tsp of dry ginger powder (chukku)
2 tbsp of coconut pieces
12 oraisins
12 cashew nuts
INSTRUCTIONS:
1. It’s best to get the jaggery melted and sieved first. If you know your jaggery has no impurities, then you can skip this but generally, it’s best to add about 1 cup water to your jaggery, melt it down on the stove, and pass it through a sieve. Set this aside until needed.
2. Pre-cook your ada according to package instructions. We brought some water+thinnest coconut milk (moonnam paal) to a rolling boil, turned off the flame, and soaked the ada in it for 15 mins. You can just use water for this, no need for coconut milk at this stage.
3. Next, add the thin coconut milk to the ada and cook until it turns soft. The mixture will turn a gloopy (in a nice way) and thicken. This took about 12 mins or so for the ada we used.
4. Add the melted jaggery to this and simmer for another 5-10 mins. You only need to stir it occasionally, not continuously.
5. While the above mixture bubbles away, let’s prep the coconut pieces, raisins, and cashews. Heat the ghee and roast the coconut pieces first until completely darkened. You have to make sure it’s totally brown and almost-black.
6. Drain the coconut pieces and add the cashew nuts and raisins. Roast until golden brown and drain.
7. Getting back to our simmering payasam, add in the thick coconut milk at this point, mix once and turn off the flame. Don’t boil the payasam after this, otherwise the coconut milk will curdle.
9. Almost done! Add the spice powders – cardamom, dry ginger, cumin – long with the roasted coconut, raisins and cashews and the ghee used to roast them in. Mix well and let the payasam sit for a bit for the flavours to mingle and settle.
Notes:
– The Kerala jaggery we used is a much darker colour and unsalted. This works best for ada pradhaman but if you can’t find it where you live, use the regular jaggery
– To adjust sweetness levels if necessary, add coconut milk or sugar according to which way you want to go
– Make your own coconut milk. It makes the payasam taste that much better
– We used and prefer and rice ada but you can also use flour ada to make ada pradhaman. Follow package instructions to cook them since different types and brands of ada require different cooking times
Can I use brown sugar instead of jaggery?
Thanks
yes but the flavour will change a bit