Here I am writing my 150th post, thanks to the support of all my fellow bloggers and friends without whom I would not have come this far. So to celebrate the occasion I have chosen the traditional Akkaravadisal, which is a rich South Indian dessert that is made during festivals as an offering to God. It is a traditional Iyengar recipe and is normally made with lots of ghee. I reduced the ghee and it was still rich due to the cooking of the rice in milk.
If anybody is wondering why the color is so white instead of the lovely brown, I blame it on the jaggery. When we were shopping for jaggery a few months ago, K showed me light and dark jaggery. I hardly use jaggery and just decided to go with the light one since the dark one did not look pretty !!. Big mistake which I realized when I made this dessert. Well I happily added the jaggery and was waiting for it to turn brown, nope nothing happened. Baffled, I thought may be the saffron milk would do it. Nope .. as I was raking my brain it suddenly dawned on me that I should have bought the dark one. Well I bought a big block of it and it is probably going to take years to finish that up. So my dreams of having a brown akkaravadisal or a brown sakkarai pongal is going to be a dream for now. *sigh*.
This dish is normally semi-solid and it thickens with time. No worries, just warm some milk and add to it before serving. I did not find it to be overly sweet and me a savory person also enjoyed it. K, needless to say loved it and innocently asked me why I was making it. Shouldn’t he know by now that I am addicted to blogging and I need no reason to make stuff !!. So I told him that I was going to blog about it. Next question, why aren’t you making it for my birthday? (Now that actually means, why haven’t I made it all these years.) I looked at him and was like “Oh OK”. So this is on the menu for his birthday. Well, the picture part is done and the next time is going to be a breeze
Enough of my rambling. Off to the recipe friends.
1/2 cup raw rice
2 tbsp moong dal
4 cups milk (I used 2% milk)
1 cup jaggery
Saffron soaked in milk
Cardamom powder
Cashews
Raisins
Method
Soak jaggery in warm water (about 1 oz) for 30 minutes. This will help jaggery to break down and also impurities if any will float on top.
Remove any impurities floating on top. Discard the water.
Wash rice and moong dal.
In a tbsp of ghee fry the rice and moong dal lightly.
Take the fried rice and moong dal in a vessel.
Add 4 cups of milk and place in pressure cooker and cook for 4-5 whistles. (About 15 – 20 minutes). We want the rice and dal to be mushy.
To the same vessel (it will have the leftover ghee after roasting cashews and raisins) add the mashed rice + dal mixture.
Add the soaked jaggery.
Add cardamom powder.
Add the roasted cashews and raisins.
Mix to combine.
Enjoy!