Urad Dal Kheer/ Urad Dal Payasam/Ullundhu Payasam

Urad dal kheer is a traditional drink prepared in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu and this drink is prepared with healthy ingredients in it. Though this kheer calls for urad dal, dry ginger, palm sugar and cardamom, this payasam tastes absolutely delicious when served warm or else chilled. This drink is definitely an energy booster especially for girls and growing kids. Simple to prepare, this kheer gets ready very easily if you go for pressure cooking. Since i used palm sugar instead of jaggery or sugar, the addition of palm sugar aka panang kalkandu makes this delicious payasam more healthy as this palm sugar is loaded with many interesting medicinal values. Palm sugar helps a lot to deduce body heat and this sugar is rich is iron, obviously its definitely healthy with loads of nutritional values.

This yummyilicious Urad dal kheer aka Ullundhu Payasam goes to this month's Shhh Cooking Secretly, started by myself and now the event is taken by Mayuri Patel, Mayuri paired me with Pallavi Purani. Pallavi gave me Urad dal and cardamom as my secret ingredients, obviously we are supposed to post dishes under this month's theme 'Summer treats'. This Urad dal payasam served chilled makes an excellent summer drink as well and not to forget that palm sugar used in this kheer is super good to reduce the body heat, obviously this drink is a prefect summer treat. Thanks Pallavi for giving me this two incredible ingredients for pulling me to prepare this healthy kheer for this month's challenge.

1/4cup Whole Urad dal
2cups Whole Milk
1cup Water
1/4cup Palm sugar
1tsp Crushed Dry ginger
3nos Cardamoms (crushed)
Few chopped nuts
few saffron strands

Dry roast the whole urad dal in low flame until a nice aroma comes from.

Transfer this roasted urad dal in a pressure cooker, add a cup of water and pressure cook for 3whistles.

Meanwhile bring boil the milk, with palm sugar, crushed dry ginger,once the palm sugar gets well dissolved. Put off the stove.

Strain this milk and pour it immediately to the pressure cooked urad dal, mash it lightly, add water or milk if needed.

Finally add the crushed cardamoms, saffron strands and bring it to boil and put off the stove.

Dont disturb the kheer for a while and let it cool slightly.

Serve at room temperature topped with chopped nuts.