Kaon payesh with rasgullas

The other evening at a relative’s house, I had the most amazing dessert. It was a cold milk dish. The milk had been thickened but the consistency was still runny. The milk had been cooked with little bits of chhena or chhaana, and then flavoured with jaggery juice that was as delicious as it was aromatic. The chilled dessert, I was told, was a kind of chhaanar payesh.

That Bengal’s payesh — called kheer in the north, and payasam in the south — can be wonderfully varied is something that my friends and relatives have been telling me for long. When I was growing up, however, the payesh that we ate at home was of one kind — thick and creamy, cooked with govindobhog rice, and garnished with plump raisins. My mother wielded a mean ladle when it came to payesh, and for every special occasion, a bowl of payesh would adorn the dining table.

I can see a lot of people in the kitchen, stirring a cauldron full of milk now that the festive season of Bijoya Dashami has begun, after the last day of Durga Puja, or Dashami. During this season, which carries on till Diwali, people in Bengal, as well as those outside, visit each other’s homes to wish them a happy Bijoya. And with all other kinds of savouries and sweets, a bowl of payesh is always there to welcome the guests.

That’s because an auspicious occasion has to be marked with a serving of payesh. Calcutta chef Pradip Rozario points out that an infant’s first taste of rice is often with a little serving of payesh. When the child first goes to school, a bit of payesh goes into his or her mouth to ensure that the child sits in the front row and gets all the answers right.

It’s there at all times — when the child grows up and goes to college, starts to work and gets married. “Bengalis say you can’t start anything auspicious without first tasting something sweet,” says the chef, who runs the restaurant K. K.’s Fusion in Calcutta.

Payesh with pistachios and sandesh

What’s interesting is that there are many innovative ways of preparing and presenting payesh. The basic ingredients and method are the same, of course. You boil milk with a fistful of rice, add sugar to it while the milk thickens, and then garnish it with all that you like. And there’s nothing like payesh with nolen gur, liquid date palm molasses which add colour, flavour and strength to the milk.

But that’s just the beginning. Payesh, the chef stresses, is of all kinds. If you add a bit of rose water to the milk once it has been boiled and sweetened, it adds a new flavour to the payesh. Nuts such as pistas and almonds lend their own aromas and taste to the dish. And different varieties of rice infuse the payesh with their distinctive flavours. Gobindobhog rice — small and flavourful — has its own taste, just as the long grains of Basmati give a tasty twist to the milk. Chef Rozario also likes to cook his payesh with a cereal called kaon from Bangladesh.

For this, he soaks the flakes in cold water for half an hour. Then he washes and cleans them, sets them aside, and adds the lot to milk once it has been boiled in a kadhai. Sugar or molasses go into the milk, which is then flavoured with bits of cardamom seeds and cashew nuts. He tops the payesh with a dollop of ghee, and then serves it hot with — or even over — rasgullas.

The chef suggests that if you want to make your payesh a little different this festive season, serve it with or over sweets such as sandesh and kala jaam. The sweets have their own tastes, but meld well with the milky dessert.

A good payesh goes well with fruit too. My mother-in-law used to prepare a delicious dessert that was called komla lebur payesh, or payesh with oranges. The process was a bit laborious — but the outcome was so delicious that it was worth the effort. The payesh was prepared a day before the occasion, and then chilled in the refrigerator.

Then a mound of oranges was peeled, and the fibres and skin of each segment of an orange were painstakingly removed. Then the beautiful and strongly flavoured orange pulp was taken out of the segments, and the spiky pulp was set aside to be chilled. The next day, when the guests came over, the payesh was served garnished with the orange spikes, which gave a nice touch — crunchy and tart — to the sweet taste of the dessert. It looked beautiful — and was delectable.

Some veggies — such as bottle gourd — go into payesh too. But while I like chef Rozario’s idea of pairing payesh with sweets, I think the king of payesh is the simple one with patali gur — the kind my mother used to make. It is this that makes Bengal if not the land of milk and honey, at least the land of milk and molasses.       

Plain payesh (serves 4)

Ingredients:

• 4 cups milk •1 large tbs small grained aatap rice

• 75g sugar • 1/2 tsp ground green cardamom

Method:

Boil the milk in a deep pan and add the rice. Cook, stirring frequently until it has reduced by half and the rice has almost blended with the milk. Take it off the fire and add the sugar. Stir well and put it back on a gentle fire for five minutes, taking care that the milk does not boil over. Sprinkle ground green cardamom on top and serve hot or chilled.

Almond payesh with kala jaam (serves 4)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup cooked rice • 1 cup sugar • 1 tbs roasted and shredded almonds • 2 tbs raisins • 2 cups milk • kala jaam as required

Method:

Boil the milk and sugar together. Add the cooked rice to it and let it simmer till it’s smooth. Add raisins and stir. Serve hot or cold, garnished with shredded, roasted almonds and with kala jaam.