Recipe - Annam Paravanam

Recipe - Annam Paravanam (Chawal ke Kheer/Pongali)

Rice pudding (Rice cooked with jaggery and milk)

Summary

Annam Payasam also called KSHIRANNAM (KSHIRA - milk, ANNAM- cooked rice) is a sweet rice pudding with milk. Every Telugu festival or celebration in a Telugu family always consists of paravanam/payasam. North Indians call this preparation as KHEER. Hence this is a typical Indian dish, both for south and north Indians, invariably prepared on all auspicious occasions and offered as PRASAD to the ISHTA DAIVAM (family deity/Lord) before being served. Paravanam is also considered ideal for offering as PRASAD after Lakshmi / Lalitha Pooja on Fridays. The main reason being that Rice and Milk the main ingredients are considered as pure, natural products and any dish prepared out of these is considered worthy for offering to the deity. Besides the ingredients used are easy for digestion for young and old, even to the toddlers.

I make annam paravanam for major festivals like ugadi, dusshera, sankranti. Anam parvanam is usually made with jaggery, sugar can also be used. For the authentic taste nothing beats jaggery. The beauty of this desert is that you can control the amount of jaggery, ghee to watch your waist line and the taste is still retained even with little amount of jaggery/ghee.

Ingredients:

• Rice - 1 cup
• Jaggery - 2 cups (grated)
• Milk - 3 cups (boiled)
• Cashews - 1/2 cup (roasted)
• Raisins - 1/4 cup (roasted)
• Ghee - 1 tablespoon (to roast cashew and raisins)
• Cardamom powder - 1/2 table spoon
• Saffron - 1/4 teaspoon

Cook Rice:

Wash 1 cup rice, add 2 cups of water to cook. Cook the rice separately and set it aside. Rice should be little soft and mushy unlike rice cooked for rice dishes like tamarind rice or capsicum rice .

Process:

Add milk and jaggery to the cooked rice, mix well at a low temperature. Make sure there are no rice lumps, rice and milk should mix well without leaving water or rice standing separate. Let it simmer for 5 - 10 minutes. Stir inbetween to make sure, the dish doesn't burn from the bottom.

Add roasted cashews, roasted raisins and cardamom powder, mix well.


Let it simmer for 5 minutes, add saffron and turn off the stove in 5 minutes or sprinkle on the top of the sweet dish before serving.


Preparation time: 20 minutes
# Servings: 6 - 8