I did not imagine an incident would overpower me to the level that I would not find time to post my recipes. I was so engrossed with the Chennai flood relief work, I could not post from the 2nd to 5th of December. This does not mean I was not up for the challenge. I had to feed Sarah so, I did cook on these days. Paal vazhaka was a simple dish to make especially around a tight schedule that required my attention. Paal means milk and vazhaka means Kerala plantain and together they make a great pair. These bananas often cause bloating and is heavy and tapioca pearls or sago soothes tummy, so paal vazhaka was a good choice for Sarah. Just that I was so busy to edit my images and bring them here, I could not post them on time. I also did not feel like blogging. Chennai and I have a very special relationship. Chennai is where I spent the last 7 years of my life, learning the language, loving their food, culture and cinema and also did a PhD amidst this love affair. My hubby often teased me for being a Tamil fan and I realised it was true because I could not do something I loved the most, blogging for the past 3 days. But having done my bit and learning that my friends in Chennai are fine, I have decided to post all these stuff that was kept in pending. I did this North Kerala dish known as Paal vazhaka for Sarah because it seemed easy to make and I had an unused pack of sabudhana lying around for some time. I had read a lot of recipes online and like the one by Sujitha Nair a fellow blogger friend. But I guess the recipe was somewhere in the back of my mind and I was in no mood to check the recipe. So I have done whatever I could in a jiffy. I don’t claim this is authentic but I made this for Sarah and she loved it.
Ingredients for Paal Vazhaka
Milk- 500 ml
Sago- 1/4 cup
Sugar- 4 tbsp
Cardamom powder- 1 tsp
Kerala banana- 1
Ghee- 2 tsp
Raisins- 5-6
Directions
Soak the sago overnight. Cook the sago with 1 cup water. Add the milk and sugar to the cooked sago and add the chopped banana. Cook the banana with the milk and sago for 5 minutes. Now add the cardamom powder and let the paal vazhaka simmer for 4-5 minutes. Meanwhile heat ghee in a pan and fry the raisins. Add the fried raisins to the sago cooked with milk and bananas and serve it when it cools down a bit.
Sago is made up of tapioca powder and is therefore called tapioca pearls.Traditionally paal vazhaka is made with coconut milk but I used plain milk for this version. I could not take too many pics because I was busy with the relief work, the next time I do this, I promise to add more.
