No, it’s not chocolates, but equally sweet 😋

There are a few things quintessential Kerala, starting with Usha Uthup’s song Ente Keralam 🎶🎵🎶 followed by food specialities like banana chips, jackfruit halwa, tapioca & fish curry, parotta & beef, puttu and so on. There is much more you can keep appending to the list, like payasam, a sweet dish. I am partial to jaggery payasam and jaggery is brown 🤎

And this is the first time I am making a payasam and the dish is Broken Wheat Jaggery Payasam. The recipe was right there behind the packet of the Broken Wheat and besides there are many Youtube videos that show how to make this dish. It is very popular esp. during celebrations in Kerala.

I am ecstatic that it turned out well, not too shabby for a first attempt😀. I loved the process, watching the various hues of changing browns – first the speckled walnut brown, then a gingerbread brown, further into a creamy caramel brown and finally a silky toffee colour. I always feared that something might go wrong. It’s labour intensive, esp. when I had to grate the coconuts and extract the coconut milk. But it’s worth the effort.

I made it first thing in the morning yesterday; it was a morning dessert and several times later in the day too !! 

So cheers to all jaggery payasam lovers. It’s new love and love is brown🤎. Here are the pictures👇.

Don’t forget to add a pinch of dry ginger powder, few pods of cardamon and a pinch of salt to kick in the sweetness !!

Till next post, take care !!