Rice, lentils or vermicelli cooked slowly in milk or coconut milk with sugar or jaggery, scented with cardamom and scattered with cashews fried in ghee.
What makes it payasam
Something starchy — rice, vermicelli, lentils or rice flakes — cooked soft in milk.
Sugar or jaggery.
Cardamom.
Cashews and raisins fried in ghee on top.
Where it comes from
Payasam ends the Kerala sadya, the vegetarian feast of Onam and weddings, and is offered at temples across the south. The plainest is pal payasam — rice cooked in milk for so long it turns pale pink — and the temple at Ambalappuzha is famous for it.
Pradhamans are the richer family: jaggery and coconut milk, with rice flakes, lentils or banana. A sadya may serve two or three, one after another.
How it varies
Pal payasam
Rice and milk, reduced for hours until pink and thick.
Ada pradhaman
Rice flakes in jaggery and coconut milk — the grandest of the sadya sweets.
Semiya payasam
Thin vermicelli, quick, and made across the south.