I am the only sweet tooth person at home,(of course kids r too but only for chocolates 😜).
So I usually avoid making sweets on a regular basis as I end up eating the major portion of it😔.
But these days, the cravings for sweets has increased drastically, so I end up making some jaggery based sweets in small quantity,convincing myself jaggery is healthy 😉.
Let's come to this Avalakki payasa story. I had tasted this few months ago, in one of our Tamil friend's house and that day I missed to take the recipe from her even though I liked the payasa. Few days back, I happened to read this recipe in Rak's kitchen blog, I was amazed with the procedure of making this , also the very less time involved had caught my attention instantly. Today, my sudden crave for sweet pushed me to try this recipe and I must admit, its extravagant delicious 😋. One cannot stop eating in a limited portion, i bet.(only if you are a sweet lover like me ) . Being a Mangalorean, I prefer my payasa's with coconut milk, luckily in her blog she even mentioned it can be done using coconut milk, now what reason do I have, to stop myself from trying this ?
The aroma of frying the Avalakki in ghee itself is so heavenly that ,i almost lost myself in it.
I will share my recipe here,
Cuisine: South Indian
Category: Vegan
Type : dessert
Serving : 4 medium bowls easily
Ingredients:
Thick Avalakki/ aval / poha - 1/2 cup
Powdered jaggery- 1/4 cup + 3 tbsp (or little more if you like very sweet)
A pinch of salt
Ghee- 1 tbsp
Water- 1 and half cups
Coconut milk- 400 ml tin
Broken cashews - 2 tbsp
Cardamom powder- 1/2 tsp
Method :
Heat ghee in a kadai, add the cashew pieces and fry until golden and remove it to a bowl.
In the same kadai, add the poha and fry the poha until golden adding little more ghee say about 1 tsp (only if required) , in a medium flame. This takes about 3 to 4 minutes. The aroma of frying poha in ghee is indeed so aromatic.
Add 1 and half cups of water to the poha and cook it until poha is cooked well, make sure to keep the flame from low to medium,so that the water doesn't evaporate before the poha gets cooked.
Once the aval is well cooked, add the jaggery powder,along with a pinch of salt, mix well and continue cooking for good 5 to 8 minutes atleast, so that aval absorbs the sweetness from the jaggery nicely. The poha puffs up and looks little brownish when the jaggery is aborbed well.
Switch off the flame, add the coconut milk, give a nice mix, switch on the flame and cook for about 2 minutes in a very low flame ,you need not boil, when you see few bubbles coming from the side of the kadai,its done. Take off from the flame.
Add the cardamom powder, cashew pieces and serve.
Note :
1.Thick poha Is preferred, thin poha might change the texture
2.Using coconut milk is optional, if you want to make it using milk, i have attached the recipe link of Rak's kitchen here.
https://rakskitchen.net/aval-payasam-recipe-rice-flakes-payasam-recipe/