Welcome aboard!

Indian cuisine is a riot of colours, flavours, and spices. Every state has its own unique culture- ingrained taste bud. And, to many of us staying within familiar tastes is a sacrosanct act. Of course an occasional trip to a speciality restaurant that serves another fare is ok. But, as a matter of routine ...at home...NO!

One of the benefits of being born to parents who dared an interstate marriage (am talking about India of the 70's) was being able to widen a regional taste bud to accept, experiment and, relish eclectic cuisines :-)

I love food! Be it traditional or fusion, cooking is all about turning out fare that is tasty and healthy.I welcome all lovers of good food to come on aboard and share your kitchen adventures.

If you like what you see, do leave a comment. If you don't, please leave a suggestion to help me make this better.

You can also request for any recipe you want. Just leave a note in a comment box.

Happy cooking!

Dershana

Friday, September 19, 2008

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

16 comments:

Indian Khana said...

Wow tht's a detail recipe and Ada Pradhaman looking so yummy...your feast is making me hungry here :(

Unknown said...

wow.. nice click.. i have readymade ada.. will try dear.. thxs for sharing..

Nidhi said...

Dershana, thats a lovely closure to the traditional feast!
Ada Pradhaman looks nice. I tried this for the first time a week back at a wedding.
Thanks for sharing how to make the Adas at home.

ST said...

Good steps to extract coconut milk..Ada pradhaman looks delicious and yummy.

Raks said...

Thanx for sharing the traditional recipes!Really useful for many like me!

ST said...

Dershana - Actually this vadas are not as soft as dahi vadas fried in oil they are little bit hard but to reduce hardness u can add little bit of soda to the batter and make vadas.
To get the soft vadas after soaking ,The yogurt mixture should not be too thick. It should be slightly thicker than buttermilk so that the vadas can soak the water.

Eat immediately after making vadas.

Thanks for trying out and informing me.

Usha said...

Wow this looks awesome...my mom in law makes this and it tastes super yummy..

Dershana said...

Hmm, that's a good idea sireesha, i will add a little cooking soda the next time. adnd for all of you reading this, sireesha's oil free dahi vada recipe is a keeper :-)

Dershana said...

Thank you, Usha. It was my appa who instilled a taste for ada pradhaman in me. he used to make this for me while my amma made the white payasam for my brother who liked that better.

Dershana said...

Priti, may be you can choose Muscat as your family holiday destination next time and I can treat you to this :-)

Thank you, Sireesha, Nidhi, and Raks kitchen for your kind words :-)

Prema Sundar said...

First time in ur blog... u have a wonderful collection of traditional kerala recipes. thanks for the detailed instructions on ada pradhaman.

Deepthi Shankar said...

looks lovely ..

Anonymous said...

hi dershana....thnx for visting my blog....u have a collection of all yummy recipes...good work!

Unknown said...

This looks really awesome. Since I dont get rice ada. I make this with oats. Should try making the rice ada at home.

vimmi said...

Dershana,

tried your Ada Pradaman for Iftar yesterday, came out well. Pursue with this task of imparting quality good food to people. Thank you and take care
Yasmin

Unknown said...

This is one my most fav kerala dish!

 
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