Pasi Paruppu Pradhaman | Moongdal Coconut Milk Payasam

Pasi Paruppu Pradaman (Moongdal Coconut milk Payasam) is one of the most common and traditional Payasam variety most of us have a practice of making for any festivals and auspicious occasions. Unlike the Tamilnadu style payasam, where we use jaggery with cooked moong dal and finally add milk once the jaggery payasam cools down completely, Kerala Style Moong dal payasam is enriched with coconut milk instead of plain milk. Also they call it as “Pradhaman” as we call as Payasam. Generally for any payasam, we garnish with fried cashews and raisins, but in this delicious payasam, along with fried cashews, we also need to garnish with fried chopped coconut.

Kerala is famous for Coconut Trees. Most of their food have coconut as their mandatory ingredient. From sweets to main courses, they use coconut. As my MIL is from Nagercoil which is nearly border of trivandrum, my MIL also uses lots of coconut in many recipes. She always prepare Pradhaman instead of Tamilnadu Style Payasam. The biting the bits of coconut makes this Pasi Paruppu Pradhaman even more delicious.

Most of us have a tradition to make dal payasam with jaggery for any festivals. My Grandma always tell me that sugar based payasam is not a best offering to God. So she always advice me to make jaggery based dal payasam. Also only Bengal gram dal (Kadalaparuppu) and Moong dal are used for payasam. Kadalaparuppu (Channadal) Payasam, Arisi Thengai Payasam, Arisi Paruppu Payasam, Ada Pradhaman, Chakka Pradhaman, Aval Payasam, Sago(Javvarasi/sabudana) Payasam are some traditional Payasam Varieties.

Tips for making Pasi Paruppu Pradaman:

Adjust the sweetness as per your need. We can add sugar and adjust the sweetness
We can also garnish fried raisins
Always switch off the flame after adding the thick coconut milk. The payasam should not boil after adding thick coconut milk
If you want to make a simple payasam with moong dal, then you can skip adding coconut milk. Once the jaggery is boiled, add the mashed rice+dal mixture and stir well and then boil for 5 mins and switch off the flame. Once the payasam is cooled off, add 1 cup of boiled and cool milk and mix well
Adding coconut pieces enhances the taste but they are optional.

Recipe Card for Pasi Paruppu Pradaman | Moongdal Coconut Milk Payasam:

INSTRUCTIONS WITH STEP BY STEP PICTURES

PREPARATION OF COCONUT MILK

Take 1 Coconut, Cut in half, grate the coconut. Take the grated coconut in a mixer jar and add 1 cup of warm water and grind the coconut to a paste. Squeeze out the ground coconut and extract out the thick milk and strain it and keep it aside
Again take the squeezed coconut scrapings to mixer jar and add 1 cup of warm water and grind it again and squeeze out coconut milk. This milk is thin in consistency. If you are using store bought coconut milk, Take ⅔ of the milk and add 1 cup of water and dilute the milk. Keep the rest of the ⅓rd cup of coconut milk aside.

COOKING DAL & RICE

Dry fry the moongdal till it becomes red colour.

Mix the fried moong dal and rice and rinse it and add 1.5 cups water and pressure cook for 3-4 whistles.

Take the pressure cooked dal+rice and mash it and keep it aside

MELT JAGGERY

In a pan, add jaggery and add water to soak the jaggery. Keep the flame high and let the jaggery melts completely in water till it dissolves. Take this jaggery juice aside

PREPARING GARNISHING INGREDIENTS

Heat a teaspoon of ghee and fry the cashews till golden color and take it aside.

In the same pan, add the sliced coconut pieces and fry till golden brown and take these aside. The fried cashews and coconut pieces are for garnishing the Pradhaman