Gattakki Payasa, Rice & Chickpea Pudding

Continuing with long lost traditional Kannadiga recipes, I present Gattakki Payasa. This particular sweet dish like all ancient recipes requires very few ingredients, the things that were handy back in the days when there were no commercial agriculture and supermarkets, and food mostly meant something that was harvested during the past season. As we can see the ingredients are simple. Broken rice, the coarse leftover from paddy husking, is the primary ingredient of the dish. Split chickpeas or Channa dal was one of the most common legume in our region during those days. A few decades ago when the social fabric was still tight knit, entire community used to pool in scare resources to grow Chickpeas on dry but fertile tank beds when rains failed. Not only are chickpeas hardy crop but also bountiful enough to see folks through difficult times. My grandmother tells me that her father who was the village headman led such projects quite a few times. One person from each household in the village was dedicated to the community project and at the end of the harvest, each household used to get a share in the harvest. A wonderful way of life is it not?

I have been pushing mom for ancient recipes. Everyone else will probably think high of Gulab Jamoons and Mysore Paks but then who will care for these 'subaltern' sweets that are almost out of collective memories!! She probably thinks I am a nut to pursue such recipes. In fact I had never heard of this recipe before. Even mom kind of forgot about this one, just that my prodding brought back the memory of this dish. Well, the recipe actually calls for Akki-nucchu or broken rice but we did not get it here in USA, instead we got cream of rice and Mom used it instead. She opines that broken rice is still the best bet but like us if you fail to find broken rice, go ahead with some cream of rice.



We will need,

Broken Rice /Akki Nuchhu 1 Cups
Channa Dal 3/4 Cup
Jaggery 2 Cups
Coconut 1/2 Cup
Cardamon 2-3 crushed
Ghee 3 tbsp

Method:

1. Pick and clean the broken rice. Wash in several changes of water. Combine with 4-4.5 cups of water and bring it to a boil. Simmer till cooked half way.
2. Throw in the Channa Dal. Cook till the dal is tender but has a bite to it- al dente!
3. Stir in crushed Jaggery, crushed and simmer till the flavors bend.
4. Finish by stirring in the ghee. The ghee adds a nice simmer apart from of course enhancing the taste.

Traditionally it is served with freshly extracted coconut milk! I did say just dig in :)
This recipe goes out to the MLLA 20th helping started by Susan