Madh Payasa

For those intrigued by the magic of the medicinal madh thoppu from my previous post, below is a recipe on how to make madh payasa, that is if you are lucky enough to get these leaves from kodagu. I would also like to use this post to make people aware of the widespread destruction that floods and landslides induced by heavy rainfall has caused in Kodagu over the last couple of weeks. Kodavas from world over and especially those based in Bangalore have used their time, money and other resources to serve the people of kodagu, stepping over caste, creed, religion & language. While the district no longer requires donations in terms of relief material, it will take a long long time to rebuilt everything that has been lost and any monetary donations are very welcome. A few avenues where you can do this are donating to the Chief Minister's Relief fund  directly or to the fund via Google Tez or PayTm. I've extolled the brilliance of monsoons in kodagu in my last post, but nature decided to show us her fury this year. There's a lesson in there for us on sustainability, one we need to start heading to.

Going back to healing things that rain brings to Coorg, madh thoppu. I'll start this recipe with instructions on making the extract which we will then use for the payasa. 


Equipment

• Medium sized deep saucepan 
• Strainer
• Sterilised glass bottle
• Mortar/Pestle or something to crush the leaves with

Ingredients

• Madh Thoppu : a bunch of leaves & stems almost filling (say 3/4s of) the saucepan. You can also use the stems. 
• Water : Enough to immerse the leaves.

Method

• Crush the leaves and the stems a little bit use a mortar & pestle.
• Add the above in the sauce-pan you'll be using and cover with enough water to submerge
• Soak overnight.
• In the morning, boil the leaves and stems for half an hour. Strain the liquid, and cool. Store in a sterilized glass bottle for use later - ideally refrigerate. 

Moving on to the payasa:

Equipment

• Large deep saucepan 

Ingredients

• 1 cup rice - washed, any variety will do, except the sticky/jasmine rice
• 4-5 cups of madh thoppu extract
• pinch of salt
• 1/4 cup grated coconut
• 1/3  - 1/2 cup jaggery, depending on how sweet you like it
• 2-3 green cardamoms, seeds roughly crushed

Method

• Add the extract into the pan and bring it to a boil, add in salt and the washed rice. It might appear that there is too much water, but the payasa thicken when it cools, so you don't want to restrict the amount of water/extract you add here. Keep stirring. The rice will begin to cook and when it's 1/2 way  done proceed to next step.
• Crush the jaggery a bit and add it into the water - you can do this a bit at a time to check for sweetness. Some also prefer to make a jaggery syrup by boiling jaggery in water and then adding the liquid to the rice - both ways work. Continue stirring intermittently to avoid burning or as we say in coorg "adi pudchi poppa", word to word translation being  "it'll catch the bottom". Transliterated is means - it might start burning ;)
• Add in the grated coconut and the cardamom and mix to combine well. 
• Be careful not to cook too much, as the mixture tends to thicken quickly and you don't want that. It should maintain a flow-y consistency.
• Once the rice is cooked and you have the desired consistency, remove from heat and cool completely. 

My mom always serves this with a dollop of ghee on top, which rendered me speechless after just a spoonful. A purple pick me up for the monsoons.