Cabbage Kheer / Payasam

After busy weekdays at office, weekends have become luxury. After late night movies, parties and snacking most of the times we end up having brunch or lunch. At times on weekends there are moments where I don’t want to spend lots of time sweating in kitchen with elaborate meal menu and at the same time, not compromising on eating something special. By well planning and with little touch of creativity (and sometimes craziness) I  usually spend less than half an hour in kitchen preparing food. But when that happens, lots of the grocery I have already bought for the week goes wasted and I end up cooking mix vegetables and Vegetable Pulao from that. And this time, I had this half a bunch of Cabbage waiting for me in the fridge which I hadn't finished through during the week.

At first I  thought of making Cabbage paneer Paratha, but then since we already had Palak Paneer the other day I had to chuck this idea of my mind. Out of my sheer zing, I postponed the idea of deciding on this floret until evening and then very conveniently forgot about it . And by the time I remembered the whole thing, I already had soaked rice for some leftover veggie pulao. Such an irritating this re-planning whole menu thing is seriously. But again, just to make use of this Cabbage floret, I called out for help on my FB Page and got some amazing ideas from dear Bloggers and friends. I don’t remember right now who roped this idea in my mind but whosoever did, I held it tight and prepared this kheer the very next morning.

I vaguely remembered the taste from my childhood when my Mum used to make it a lot for us during Monsoon, due to its anti-inflammatory properties. I was so sceptical of giving it to S at first, but to my surprise he couldn't recognise what’s inside it and finishes up whole bowl thinking that he is eating bottle guard kheer. It was when I told him, that I have fed him at least a quarter of the cabbage already, he was all wide eyed and I was all grins *;). I won’t say he is a very fussy eater, but if he likes something he won’t spare it even for next day and will have it whole. It happened to this kheer too, all finished in one go. Which is very surprising since he has this long Pinocchio nose through which he smells everything I keep hidden in  the kitchen. And since he couldn’t recognise cabbage in this kheer, am sure not many people would be able to either. Unless you are using purple cabbage, of course.  I can even think of a party now, where I can play a guess game on this kheer. To name the key ingredient. Wow!!

Anyway, coming right back to the recipe. It’s very very simple but the only drawback is that you may only eat it cold. I have tried eating it while fresh and hot, and it was OK and not great. But when its chilled, it tastes amazing and a very rich dessert. Since cabbage is a very low calorie diet ( and this is the reason why people swear on cabbages soup diet ), if you reduce the quantity of sugar and don’t add condensed milk to it, this may become a perfect family dessert.Since it has not grain into this, this can be used during fasting as well

What you need?

2 cups shredded Cabbage

1 can condensed milk

4 cups milk

½ cup Sugar – or you may reduce it depending on your taste

A pinch of saffron

2-3 cardamom pods – pounded

1 tbsp ghee

¼ broken pistachios and cashew pieces.

2 tbsp Almond powder – optional 

How to make?

Boil 2 cups of water in a pan, and add shredded cabbage to it. Let it cook on medium flame for 10-15 minutes. Turn off the flame, drain the cabbage completely and reserve the drained water aside.

Now, heat ghee in a big pot and throw in the drained cabbage. Fry for 3-4 minutes on a low flame.

Keeping the flame low, add milk and condensed milk and cook this mixture for about 25-30 minutes till milk reduces to almost half of its quantity, stirring frequently to avoid it getting burnt

Add sugar and almond meal at this stage and keep stirring for 10-15 minutes more. Add in cardamom pods and saffron and turn off the flame.

Add pistachios and cashews and keep in  the refrigerator to chill

Serve chilled, garnishing with more cashews on top if required

My Notes

First and foremost, use a heavy bottomed pan for the preparation else you may end up burning the milk

Addition of almond meal or powder brings a very rich taste and texture to the kheer, you may omit it completely if you wish

To make it vegan, you can replace the milk with coconut milk and instead of condensed milk use 2 tbsp corn-starch + 2 cups of water. Cashew milk is also a good option for this

You can use the drained water in kneading the dough for chapathis, it will result in very soft dough.