My Culinary Trial Room

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Ragi Vermicelli Payasam

I had quarter of this packet of ragi semiya lying around my pantry for days together. When I made uppma out of 3/4th of the packet and I got not-so-good-kinda comments from Mr.A I was not interested to buy another packet of it. Left with ¼ packet which cannot be transformed into a dinner/breakfast for 2, I had no other option but to discard it with closed eyes. But then I didn’t have the heart to waste something healthy and useful and hence it remained safe in my pantry.

I was talking to A some days back about the soaring gold rates, some random talks, me asking for a gold ring and finally getting deviated to me not getting a bike for A. I don’t understand till date how if I ask him something always ends up with me not getting him anything (… and that ranges from an Optimus Prime Autobot action figure to a Yamaha Rz/ZZ/??* Bike) *refers to all the bike models coming up everyday and which is Greek and Latin to me.

Coming back to the conversation, though I was demanding something from him, my backend was processing all the leftovers in my pantry that had to be turned edible. Single Broccoli floret and iceberg lettuce gosh I have salad idea for dinner, 1 pomegranate – needs to be made into a refreshing chiller / or ~~can I just make~~ Oh god I just hate popping out the pom seeds, let that be where it is. Oh dear I still have that semiya packet. I hate converting left overs into dishes. You don’t have enough to make a dish out of it. That was when it struck, why not make a paayasam out of the semiya substituting the normal ones with the ragi semiya. Atlast I get to have my favorite paayasam and I use up the semiya packet… I got the thought say 2 weeks back, but then I postponed it so that I could make the dish for Gokulashtami and here is how I made it…

~*What U Need*~
Ragi Semiya – ½ cup
Water – 1 ½ cups
Milk – 1 cup
Thin coconut milk – 1 cup
Thick coconut milk – 1 cup
Sago pearls – ¼ cup
Cashew + dried grapes – 10 each
Sugar – 1 cup
Ghee – 2 tbsp

How I Made it:
Boil water and add in sago pearls. Allow to cook till the sago pearls turn completely glass with no hint of white. Next add in the thin milk of coconut and milk and allow to boil
Add in the ragi semiya and boil till the semiya is half done. Add the sugar and mix well and boil till the sugar melts in. Verify taste and if needed add sugar to taste. I didn’t do a taste check as I had to keep this pooja but 1 glass sugar was sufficient for the quantity mentioned above.
When the sugar has melted add first/thick milk of coconut, heat for 5 seconds and switch off the stove.
Roast the cashews and dry garpes in ghee till the cashews turn brown and the grapes puff up. Add this along with the ghee into the payasam and give it a stir.

Delicious and creamy ragi payasam ready!!! The flavor of raagi in paayasam was different to the regular ones but the dish was worth the effort.

My note:
After adding first milk of coconut, do not boil the payasam or it will curdle.
If the payasam become thick, either add hot milk or water with some sugar added.

So thats it Folks...
With Love,