Chana Dal Kheer / Senaga pappu payasam / Chana Dal Payasam - A religious festival recipe

 

Every part of India offers some form of kheer / payasam / payes during religious festival. This is a recipe prepared by chana dal and sabudana and is called by different names in different states. It is popular for Navratri, Ganesha puja, Maha Shivratri festival and several others. It is a tasty recipe and healthy too because of chana dal and sabudana.

Preparation Time: - 15 min

Cooking Time: - 40 min

Servings: - 2~3 persons

Ingredients:-

• 1/3 cup Bengal gram or Chana Dal /Senga pappu
• 1/3 cup Sago/Sabudana/Roasted Semiya/Tapioca Pearl
• ¾ cup Jaggery
• ½  liter  Milk
• Handful of broken Cashew nuts
• Handful of Raisins
• 2 tbsp grated coconut
• ½  cup Water for preparing jaggery
• 2 tbsp Ghee
• 2 tsp Cardamom powder

Preparation:-

1. Wash and soak Chana Dal for at least 45 minutes. Soaking reduces the time of cooking.
2. Soak sabudana in a bowl. Some sabudana takes longer soaking. You need to be aware how much soaking is needed
3. Add jaggery and ½ cup water in a pan and melt the jaggery in low heat w/o burning
4. Filter the syrup and boil it 2~3 mi so that it becomes thick. Keep it aside for cooling completely.
5. Add chana dal and 1.5 cup of water to a heavy bottom pan and cook it till it is half done.
6. Pour milk and sago on chana dal and cook till sago and dal is fully cooked.
7. Add cardamom powder and pour jaggery to the mixture.
8. Blend the whole mixture well. Adjust the consistency by adding more milk if required.
9. Heat ghee in a kadai and fry the cashew nuts. Keep aside.
10. Now fry the grated coconut in the same kadai and keep aside. Some prefer the grated coconut to be added directly to the  dal but I prefer this way as it produces a nice aroma
11. Some other people fry the raisin as well but I believe it makes them harder and not palatable.
12. Add fried coconut, cashew nuts and raisin to the dal mixture and mix well.
13. If you do not like the nuts or have allergies then just add 2 tbsp Ghee to the mixture and mix well.
14. Switch off the flame and your kheer is ready to serve.
    

That’s all folks. You can eat hot as prasadam or Freeze and serve cold. I prefer it cold as the taste is more pronounced that way.

As always please feel free to comment, criticize and seek if any help is required. I am all ears.

Happy Janmashtami to my readers with Menu

Wishing all my readers a Happy Janmashtami

We all know Child Krishna loves to eat sweets. Hence you can prepare following two items from my blog to satisfy your bal gopal or the God.

 Banana Malpua

Saboodana Kheer / Sagoor Payes

Zomato Restaurant review - The Creek - The Den, Whitefield

 

Visited the Creek at the Den for their buffet as I had the gourmet passport by dineout. We went there with kids and my father who is a senior citizen. The hotel was a nice place full of greenary and the restaurant has a wonderful view of that. They even have a outside sitting arrangement which we did not try because of unpredictable weather of Bangalore rainy season. When we travelled through the hallway to reach the restaurant we liked the music being played. That was a western styled one but has a warm tone which should be liked by everybody. The buffet spread was quite lavish and has many varieties to offer - Mediterranean, Indian and some oriental stuff. The wonderful service of the restaurant makes everybody comfortable.   They even served some stuff to the table for my aged daddy. The kids loved the ambience. They start with an welcome lemon drink which is nice. Now let us talk about the food - it was yummy to describe in one word. My husband and son loved various non-veg western salads. Even I noticed that the parsley and other leaves were very fresh. Some of the other reviewers in Zomato mentioned lack of vegetarian options but I guess management has made necessary changes this time. There were quite a large no. of vegetarian food. Of course, if you want to eat your money's worth here you have to be Non-Veg. Starter offerings were less but very tasty. Generally for such restaurants, the fish items are not that tasty ( my own experience ) but this restaurant is an exception. We enjoyed the Huang Fish very much. The paneer starter dishes were also very tasty. There is a live grill counter as well. In the main dish section I liked the Mutton biriyani and chicken chow-mein. The dessert counter was worth mentioning for the varieties they offer and the taste of course. The almond fuge was nice, trufles were really exciting and the brownies were mouth-watering. The mango pudding is the best though. There was one thing missing from the list is Gulab Jamun.  The price again is not cheap but if you have gourmet passport from dineout then you have got BOGO offer. Overall a 4.5 rating from my side. But Zomato does not allow .5 - hence made 5.0 for this one.