Payasam and Uzhunnu vada/sweet rice pudding and urad dal fritters

What you need

Pasyasam

Raw rice: 1/3 cup

Yellow split peas/Moong dal: 1 tablespoon

Jaggery: ¼ cup + 1 tablespoon

Ghee/Clarified butter: 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon

Cardamom: 3 no

Cashew nuts: 6 no

Water: 1 1/ 2 cup

For Uzhunnu vada

Black gram/Urad dal/Uzhnnu: 1 ½ cup

Green chili: 2 no (chopped finely)

Curry leaves: 2 sprigs (chopped finely

Ginger: 2 inch piece (chopped finely)

Salt: 1 teaspoon or to taste

Water: 4 cup for soaking+ ½ cup for grinding

Oil: 4 cup( I used canola oil)

How I made

Payasam

Wash both rice and moong dal and pressure cook up to 2 whistles for about 20 minutes with 1 cup of water. Set aside

In a medium sauce pot add ½ cup of water and jaggery and bring to it boil so that jaggery will dissolve completely. Remove from the fire and strain to remove any impurities and set aside.

In the same pan add jaggery water and cooked rice moong dal mixture and cook for about 6 minutes or until jaggery water gets absorbed completely by rice and add 1 tablespoon of ghee with stirring in between for another 3 minutes. Add crushed cardamom and stir well and switch off the flame.

In a small pot heat 1 teaspoon of Ghee/clarified butter and add cashew nuts and fry for 1 minute or until golden brown color. Add this to above Payasam.

Enjoy as much as you wish.

Uzhnnu vada/Black gram fritters

Soak Uzhnnu/Urad dal/ Black gram for 5 hours in 4 cup of water. At end of soaking time, clean the urad dal with running water and set aside.

In the mean time chop green chilies, ginger, onion and curry leaves finely and set aside.

In a food processor/grinder/mixer grind the soaked urad dal into fine paste with ½ cup of water. Batter should be thick; you should able to make small balls with them.

To the ground urad dal /black gram paste add salt, chopped green chilies, ginger , onion and curry leaves and mix everything so that all the ingredients gets combined well with the batter. Set aside.

Heat 4 cups of oil in thick bottomed pan, when it reaches 350 F; slowly add donut shaped urad dal dough. (On your wet palm or Ziploc bag, place a round ball of dough, slightly flatten to form the thick disc and a use your finger to create hole in the center to form the shape of doughnut). Fry them by flipping them few times for about 8 minutes or until they reach golden brown color. You will be able to fry 3 at a time.

Drain them using a slotted spoon into a kitchen towel to remove extra oil.

Enjoy with hot tea.