Caramel Rice Payasam ~ Caramel Rice Pudding

Caramel rice payasam is rice pudding cooked in caramel and milk.

2 bowls of caramel rice pudding in a brass tray

Payasam is a pudding prepared with vermicelli, rice, broken wheat or tapioca. What is called payasam in South India is kheer in North India.

I bookmarked the recipe when Vaishali posted it over a year ago and made it right away to post it the following month. For some reason I could not blog the following month and this was in my drafts ever since. Vaishali made it from Valli’s blog and I referred to Valli’s blog when making the payasam.

Caramel rice payasam is a one pot dish cooked in a pressure cooker. It is a creamy rich sweet/dessert and makes a wonderful sweet to serve for any occasion, from festivals to casual get togethers. This is the first milk based sweet for this week's BM.

I took the first two pictures the day I made the payasam and the below one the next day. These are one of the first few set of pictures I shot in RAW and edited in Lightroom (LR). Since I was new to editing RAW images, I took another set of images the following day in a different setting to play around in LR.

a bowl of caramel kheer in place on a white square plate.

Source: Srivalli
Serves: 2 - 4

Regular measuring cup
Ingredients:

¼ cup rice soaked for 10 minutes
¼ - ⅓ cup Sugar + 2 teaspoon of Sugar for caramel
3 cups Whole Milk + more if required
⅛ teaspoon Cardamom seeds, powdered, approximately ¼ teaspoon powdered cardamom

Preparation:

Wash rice and soak for 10 minutes.
In a pressure cooker, sprinkle 2 teaspoon sugar & keep on medium high flame.
As the sugar melts, swirl the cooker around for even spreading.
When all the sugar melts & is light golden in color, reduce the flame.
Let syrup cook a little longer until the syrup becomes dark golden in color & caramelized.
Gradually pour 2 cups of milk and be careful as it could splutter.
Bring milk to boil and keep stirring until caramel blends well into the milk.
Add rice, stir , close the pressure cooker & cook for 3 whistles. In my cooker (2 liters cooker), milk spilled over after one whistle. I reduced the flame to low & cooked for seven minutes.
Let the cooker cool naturally and open the cooker lid when it is safe to open.
Add sugar, cardamom powder & stir.
Add remaining 1 cup milk or more depending on desired consistency & bring the milk to a boil.
Taste and adjust sugar to taste.
Turn off the heat & serve hot or chilled.
The pudding was thick & creamy. I did not add any nuts. If one wishes, roast some cashews & raisins in ghee/ butter to garnish the pudding.

This day in:
2011 - Egg Bhurji
2012 - Chocolate Mixed Nuts Brownies