Ada Pradaman

I was introduced to Ada pradaman by a dear friend of ours hailing from Kerala. It is a heady payasam indeed. I was interested in making this at home and innocently asked our family friend Aunty for the recipe. No sooner was she half-way through the recipe, I was exhausted listening to the amount of pre-preparation this dish entailed. What pre-prepararation, you ask? How different is it from the pre-preparation for cakes and baked goodies... Not at all different and quite simple rather compared to the baking recipes. Yes, I realized that after I started baking cakes and so decided to give Ada pradaman, a shot.

I used store-bought ada and hence had to soften it before using it. Please note that the measurements given here are in 150 ml cups (rice measuring cup)

Ingredients:


Coconut milk - 1 1/2 cups
Ada - broken pieces - 1/4 cup or 8 long stands
Jagger, shredded - 1 cup
Caradamom - 1/4 tsp
Cashews - 8 to 10
Ghee - 1 tbsp
Water - as required

Method:

Heat 1/2 cup of water in a saucepan. When the water comes to a boil, add the ada to it. Let it soften in the boiling water for 2-3 minutes. Drain the hot water, run the ada through cold water and strain it well. Keep aside.
Place the shredded jaggery in a sauce pan or kadai. Pour very little water, just enough to cover the jaggery upto halfway. Heat the saucepan and leave it on simmer while the jagger melts. Use a spatula to stir it so there are no lumps. Keep aside.

Shred the coconut and extract the coconut milk. A large coconut should yield 150 ml of thick coconut milk in the first pass and another 100 ml of dilute coconut milk in the second pass. Keep the coconut milk aside.


Once the jaggery syrup has cooled down, run it through a strainer to remove any impurities. Mix the jaggery syrup into the coconut milk. Heat the sauce pan and pour the mixture into the sauce pan. Add the ada to the jaggery-coconut milk mixture. Add the cardamom. Let the mixture simmer and thicken while cooking the ada for 5-7 minutes. Keep the sauce-pan aside to cool down to ada-pradamam. Heat the ghee on a tawa or tempering saucepan and add the cashews to it. Roast the cashews until golden brown.

Pour into the cooling ada-pradamam. Serve warm or chilled. 

Optionally you can also add boiled Sabudana (Javvarisi) to the coconut-jaggery mix while adding ada. It makes an interesting and welcome addition.

Verdict: Give this a shot and it is totally worth it. Funnily, my little girl was outside playing with friends when I made this. When she came back home, I served her the ada-pradaman, and she wanted to know when our family friend aunty had come home and given the payasam. I told her I made it and she did not believe me. So I suppose this either means, she does not trust my culinary skills enough or it tasted as good as the original from Su aunty. I choose to believe the latter ;)