Kheer ( Paravannam )

Welcome to my blog and enjoy my very first recipe, a sweet dish! I wanted to start the blog traditionally by posting a sweet dish first. When thinking about sweet dishes, I think Paravannam has a very special place in lots of our hearts. Rice is cooked in milk until custard like consistency is attained. It is then sweetened and also some cashews and raisins which are fried in pure ghee are added along with ghee. The end result is a mouth watering divinely good Paravannam (as we call in Telugu).
Hope you will all try and enjoy my very first dish!


Paravannam Recipe
Ingredients
uncooked long grain Rice- 1 cup
Sabudana(sago)- 1/4 cup
milk- 4 cups
Jaggery(bellam)- 1 cup (cut into very small pieces and packed tightly to make 1 cup)
Cardamom powder(elichi powder)- 1/2 tsp
Cashew nuts- 15 nos
Raisins- 15 nos
Pure Ghee- 2 tbsp
Water- 2cups

First we start by washing the rice and sabudana. Now add rice and sabudana to a sauce pan and add 2 cups of water. Let the rice mixture cook on medium heat stirring occasionally to make sure the rice doesn't stick to the bottom. When the rice is about half done, add milk. Now add Cardamom powder and let the milk boil. Once the milk is boiling, reduce the heat and let it simmer on low heat for about 10 minutes.
To a separate pan, add ghee and when it starts melting, add raisins and cashews. Fry untill cashews get light brown color. Turn the heat off and now add the cashew and raisin mixture along with the ghee in the simmering milk and rice mixture. Turn the heat off the Kheer now. As you must have noticed where is the sweet in the Kheer?
We are going to add it in 5 minutes to make sure the Jaggery doesn't cuddle the milk. This is important otherwise all your hard work may go in vain. After 5 minutes, we add the jaggery that we cut into tiny bits to the kheer and mix it untill it gets melted. Now your yummy Paravannam is ready to eat! So, sit down and enjoy!

Tip: I like to use Jaggery in this dish because it gives very good flavor and color to the dish. Jaggery can be substituted with sugar instead if you like it.