Paal Payasam/ Milk Pudding

          Paal Payasam, it's one of the easiest and delicious desserts. The alternate name, Milk Pudding can be slightly misleading, because the preparation is totally different from that of a pudding. I had made this for my husband's birthday, he likes milk based desserts, and of course this is the simplest one. Though the ingredients required for Paal Payasam and Rice Kheer are the same, they taste different, mostly because of the different variety of rice used, still they both are delicious in their own way..

Need To Have

• Raw Rice - 1/4 cup
• Milk - 1 1/2 litres
• Sugar - 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons
• Cardamom/ Elaichi - 6
• Saffron - 2 - 3 pinches

Method

          Pressure cook the rice with a cup of water till really soft and mushy. Powder the cardamoms along with the 2 tablespoons of sugar, sift to remove the skin part of the cardamoms, which is not powdered well. In a heavy bottomed pan, boil the milk and simmer till it's reduced to 3/4th its quantity.

          Now add the cooked rice and mix it well. Then add the 1/2 cup sugar, cardamom powder and the saffron. Simmer, while stirring in between for another 5 to 10 minutes. Remove and serve it warm or cold.

Note
I had added all the cooked rice, reserving about 1/2 cup of it. You can add the entire quantity too, depending on how thick or thin you want the payasam.
An easy alternative to boiling the milk is, use 2 cans of fat free evaporated milk, just heat it, add the rice and proceed, it's even more delicious.