THE STORY OF THE FRIED RICE PAYASAM!!

This story is really really tue...I know it sounds unbeleivable, but I have witnesses to vouch for it!
I was studying in the ninth standard at the time, and had gone to my grandma's place at Erumely...My aunt had brought along her niece from her husband's side of the family, and we hit it off immediately..H was my same age, all giggly teenager...
we had a grand time, lazing about the ancestral home.One day, my aunts and my mother were talking about how the girls these days are so lazy , and how they don't know a thing about cooking, when we got all fired up..They weretalking about us.,see?So I said, "aha!! You oldies think we don't know anything about cooking? humph!!we'll show you!!"
"and what can you make, my darling girl?" my mom asked.
"So I said, "Ill show you...Im going to make fried rice..so there!!"
And off we went, majestically to the kitchen, H trailing behind me..
"Resh...but do you seriously know how to make fried rice?" she asked .
"I have no idea...It can't be too hard, though. Just boil rice, add a few veggies..and voila!1your fried rice will be ready!!"
H looked at me with doubt"that easy, huh?"
"Yup....c'mon, now first lets put some rice to boil ."
So we started cooking the rice, which was really dreary work, since the water took forever to boil, and being teenagers, we had no patience at all..So we started chopping vegetables to add to the rice while waiting for it to cook.
Being rank newcomers to the kitchen,we had underestimated the time it took for us newbies to chop veggies...
The rice kept cooking and cooking, and cooking , while we kept chopping and chopping, and chopping...
End result? the rice was so overcooked that it resembled a huge white glob!!
"Ugh!! Now what do we do, resh?that mess doesn't look like fried rice to me at all!!" said H.
"Hmm....you know...this looks just like that kheer we had Onam!!"
Looking around in desperation, my eyes fell on a can of condensed milk.
"Aha!!we're saved!!"
I added the condensed milk to the thick gooey mess and stirred..miraculously, the grains seperated a little...but it was still too thick and hard...how to make this like payasam?(kheer)
Swinging around, I saw H , timidly proffering a bottle of milk.
"yesss.."
After adding the milk, it did taste a little like paal payasam, a dessert often served for the onam feast..

To the oldie's queries about where our fried rice rice disappeared to..I gave the airy reply that we made paalpaayasam instead..fried rice is so boring...anyone can make it!!
"wow!!you know more than one recipe?you kids are much better than we expected!"

So that's the story of the fried rice paayasam!!
Though both H and I are homemakers now, we still giggle about that day whenever we meet!!

And now for a real paal paayasam recipe.

PAAL PAAYASAM

Ingredients:

1 litre milk
1 cup brown broken rice
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup condensed milk


Method:

1. In a pressure cooker boil the milk. Then add washed rice, sugar and close the pressure cooker with the lid. Bring to a full cooking pressure. After the first whistle, low the heat to very low simmer and cook for 45 minutes.

2. Open the pressure cooker after it has cooled down to see a paal payasam with a beautiful dark pink shade.

3. Add condensed milk, Serve hot or lukewarm...YUM!!

3 comments:

  1. Hi Reshma Yes , you have rekindled my memories - of fun filled days at Erumeli and remembering your ghee rice payasam I realize now that may be that was the start of your cooking hobby cum journey

    ReplyDelete
  2. have to admit it tasted yum at the time, tho I might have been biased...(haha!!)

    ReplyDelete