Rice Payasam (Tandla payasu, Doodh Paank, Milk Payasam)

Rice payasam is one of the most famous Indian dessert. It is prepared for festivals and all special occasions. Rice payasam is generally made by boiling rice with milk and sugar. It is then flavoured with cardamom, raisins, saffron, cashews and pistachios. Traditionally, the rice payasam is prepared without condensed milk. But you can use condensed milk for added taste and richness to the kheer. Skip condensed milk if you want to avoid extra calories. 

Usually, long grained aromatic basmati rice are used to prepare rice payasam. In Karnataka, sannakki - a type of tiny rice grains are used. These two rice varieties are best suited to prepare rice payasam.

Rice payasam is known by so many names. It's called rice kheer in Northern parts of India. It's called seetha payasu, tandla payasu, doodh paank or doodh pak in Konkani. Dudh/doodh refers to milk, pak/pank refers to syrup and seeth, tandul means rice in Konkani. This is also called pal payasam in Malayalam, where pal refers to milk in Malayalam. It is also called rice pudding by a few.

Here's the traditional recipe for rice payasam. 

Ingredients:

1/2 cup rice grains
1 cup milk
1/2 cup sugar
A few saffron strands(optional)
2 tablespoons of ghee
1 tablespoon of raisins
1 teaspoon of cardamom powder
1 tablespoon of cashew nuts

Serves: 2

Preparation Time: 35 minutes

Preparation Method:

1. Wash rice and pressure cook it until done. 

2. Transfer the cooked rice into a cooking vessel. Add milk and bring it to boil.

If the rice is well cooked and soft, add sugar and simmer for few minutes. If the rice isn't cooked through and soft, then let it simmer in the milk for few minutes until the rice is soft and then add sugar. As sugar doesn't let the rice cook any further.

3. After adding sugar, mix well and let the sugar dissolve. Then simmer for few minutes so as to get a syrupy-thick consistency. Add more sugar if required according to your palate.

4. Add cardamom powder and mix well. Simmer for one minute to let the flavour and taste of cardamom to get infused.

5. The kheer is usually thick in consistency. However, add more milk if the kheer gets too dry or thick and starts sticking to the bottom of the vessel.  

6. Stir once in a while to prevent the kheer from sticking to the bottom of the vessel.

7. Meanwhile heat ghee in a frying pan, add cashews and fry them until golden brown. 

8. Add fried cashews, raisins to the kheer, along with a few saffron strands for flavour(optional) and mix well.

9. Once the milk, sugar and rice have combined well to give a thick, sticky-syrupy consistency remove off heat.

10. Serve the kheer hot or chilled. 

11. Garnish with nuts on top if you wish. Use thinly sliced almond, cashew, pistachios and raisins to garnish.

Side Note: 

1. If you wish to serve kheer chilled, then keep it a little sweeter than normal as cold kheer tastes less sweet than hot kheer.
2. If you want to use condensed milk then add it along with sugar and simmer for 5-7 minutes with constant stirring to prevent it from sticking to the bottom of the vessel. Rest of the recipe remains the same.
3. You can cook raisins and cashews with rice or you can roast the cashews and raisins and add them in the end. The roasted cashews give an amazing aroma, a nice crunch to the payasam and taste heavenly. 

For more Indian desserts and sweets recipes look here.

Tags: Kheer, payasam, payasu, rice, Indian dessert, festival food, Konkani recipe, Konkani dish, Konkani cuisine, Konkani food, sweet, rice pudding, rice pudding, rice kheer, tandla payasu, doodh paank, milk payasam, rice payasam, seetha payasu.