Senagapappu paayasam

 Senagapappu / Chana daal payasam

This is the delicious dessert prepared during festivals.  The main ingredents are chana daal and jaggery. Few people, they add the sago to the half cooked chana daal and cook both together. But some times, the sago might get overcooked or the chana daal is undercooked. So to avoid both, I cook them separately. Not only that I can give just the boiled sago along with sugar to my little ones to eat or to catch the transparent sago balls and have fun.

Ingredients:
Chana daal – 1 cup
Sago – 1 cup
Jaggery – 1 cup (NO substitute)
Cashew nuts
Raisins (optional)
Ghee - 2 tbsp

Jaggery, Chana daal / Senagapappu, Sago seeds

Method:

Wash and soak the chana daal for 30 minutes and pressure cook until 1 whistle or cook normally until it is just done and should be able to press in between the fingers.

Soak the sago for 5 minutes in 3 cups of water and cook them separately until they become transparent.

Now add the boiled sago to the chana daal and add grounded cardamom powder, gratted jaggery. Whilst the jaggery is melting down, heat a small sauce pan with 4 – 5 tbsp of ghee / neyyi and fry the cashews and raisins separately and add them along with the left over ghee to the chana daal mixture.

Stir every thing and serve warm or cold. Any sweets made up of jaggery will taste better when they are cool or at last at room temperature.

Note: Instead of frying the cashews and raisins in ghee, you can just add them directly to the boiled chana daal along with sago. They get soaked well and semi cooked.