Ona Sadya Part 7 - Ada Pradhaman

The Ona sadya (traditional feast) series continues...
Today, it is Ada Pradhaman. Ada pradhaman is known as the king of payasams (kheer) at Kerala, a prestigious addition to festivities such as Onam and marriage ceremonies. It is generally dark brown in colour due to the use of jaggery or unrefined Indian sugar). Jaggery is good for health being a great source of iron and fibre. My picture looks a lighter brown because my neighbourhood store had only light brown jaggery in stock.

Rice ada - 150 gms
Jaggery - 100 gms
Thin Coconut milk - 1 1/2 cups (approx 250 ml)
Thick coconut milk - 1 1/2 cups
Cardamom (elaichi) - 4 Nos
Dry ginger (chukku) 2 gms
Dry roasted Cumin (jeera) - 2 gms
Coconut slices - a few
Cashews - 25 gms

Readymade Rice ada is generally available in stores selling South Indian provisions.If you don't find them in your neighbourhood store, then you can try the home made version. Scroll down to see how the home made version is made.
Boil a litre of water and add in the readymade rice adas. Keep stirring frequently to avoid the squares from sticking to each other (It is a little like cooking noodles/macroni). Once soft, drain and dunk in cold water. Drain again.
In a seperate vessel boil about 250 ml water and dissolve jaggery. Filter to remove scum.
Take a thick bottomed skillet and pour in the thinned down coconut milk and filtered jaggery. Add the cooked ada ensuring that each square is seperate. Simmer, ocassionally stirring, till the mixture thickens a bit (about 15-20 minutes on low flame). Powder the dry ginger,cumin, and cardamom and add in. Add the thick coconut milk.
In a seperate skillet warm a couple of teaspoons of clarified butter (ghee). Cut the coconut pieces into tiny bits. Fry these and the cashews till golden. Add to the simmering payasam mixture. Ready to indulge!

Rice ada

To make rice ada at home
Soak a cup of raw rice in water for about 4 hours. Grind to a smooth paste. Add enough water to make a batter of runny consistency. Pour these out onto either clean banana leaves or butter paper cut into large squares. Place these one by one in a steamer and cook for about 6 minutes. Take out and you will find that the rice batter has solidified into translucent sheets. Slide off into chilled water for a couple of minutes. Take out and cut into squares.

To extract coconut milk
The readymade coconut milk will very well suit our purpose but in case you prefer to make it at home, here is how:
Grated or shaved coconut - 1 large coconut
Warm water - 2 1/2 cups
Put the coconut and a few teaspoons of water in a processor/mixie and grind for a couple of minutes. Place a sieve or very thin muslin over a vessel. Take out the coconut mixure by the handful, hold over sieve and use your hands to squeeze out the milk. Repeat till the mixture is over. This first batch is your thick coconut milk (onnaam paal).
Put back the coconut into the mixie and add a cup of water. Repeat procedure over another vessel for thinned down extract. Do this entire procedure once more to fully extract all milk.
For a lesser fat version of ada pradhaman, substitue half the quantity of coconut milk with low fat ordinary milk. Use canola oil for frying the cashews instead of ghee.

With this the Ona sadya series comes to an end. Feel free to ask me if you are looking for any other traditional sadya recipe, and I will be happy to pen it down for you.

This is my final entry to Asankhana's Festive food event - Onam celebrations. The event is on at http://asankhana.blogspot.com/2008/09/after-successful-celebration-of-krishna.html

For the rest of the Ona sadya series, see...

For Ona -sadya-part 1 - Aviyal and the Onam legend, check out http://thefootloosechef.blogspot.com/2008/09/ona-sadya-part-1-aviyal.html
For Ona-sadya-part 2- Inji curry, check out http://thefootloosechef.blogspot.com/2008/09/ona-sadya-part-2-inji-curry.html
For Ona-sadya-part 3- Kootu kari, check out http://thefootloosechef.blogspot.com/2008/09/ona-sadya-part-3-kootu-kari.html
For Ona-sadya-part 4- Olan, check out
http://thefootloosechef.blogspot.com/2008/09/ona-sadya-part-4-olan.html
For Ona-sadya-part 5- Kalan, check out
http://thefootloosechef.blogspot.com/2008/09/ona-sadya-part-5-kalan.html

For Ona-sadya-part 6 - Vendakka kichadi, check out
http://thefootloosechef.blogspot.com/2008/09/ona-sadya-part-6-vendakka-kichadi.html