SweetloreEncyclopedia of World Sweets (534）
Akkaravadisal
Akkaravadisal
Ingredients and Preparation of Akkaravadisal
Desserts ／ Tamil Nadu, India
Akkaravadisal is a South Indian dish of rice and beans cooked until soft in milk and sweetened with jaggery. It has a rich aroma of ghee, and the soft, creamy rice and beans are enjoyed by the spoonful. It is an offering at Tamil temples and also appears on home tables for celebrations.
Rice Slowly Simmered in Milk
In one example recorded by India’s Central Rice Research Institute, rice and split mung beans are sautéed in a little ghee, then milk is added and they are simmered over low heat. They are cooked until the rice and beans are soft and turn smooth when stirred, and then jaggery is added. Finally, ghee, cardamom, and toasted cashew nuts and raisins are mixed in. Some examples add a small amount of saffron or edible camphor, but not every household necessarily uses them.
Rice cooked thoroughly in milk creates a creamy thickness, while the beans and ghee add depth to the flavor. The dish resembles sweet sakkarai pongal, which uses rice, beans and jaggery, but home-style akkaravadisal made with plenty of milk has a more pronounced milky flavor. Paal kozhukattai, another milk-based sweet, is shaped into dumplings, whereas in this dish the grains of rice and the beans are cooked together.
A Wish Offered in a Hundred Vessels
The Tamil poet Andal’s devotional poem Nachiyar Tirumozhi sings of a wish to offer a hundred vessels of butter and a hundred vessels filled with sweet adisil to the god of Thirumalirunjolai, fragrant with flowers. Later devotional narratives tell that Ramanuja fulfilled this wish at the temple there.
Today, akkaradisil is still offered at the Andal temple in Srivilliputhur, and the devotional practice of recreating the offering while reciting the poem also continues. While the sweet dish in the poem has long been cherished, it is uncertain whether the contents of the vessels at that time were exactly the same as the rice, beans and milk combined in today’s homes.
From the Festival Kitchen
In some cases, this dish is made in temples and homes on Koodaravalli, the 27th day of the Tamil month of Margazhi. Food writer Ashwin Rajagopalan remembers his childhood around Pongal, when his mother made it while watching over the pot and its aroma spread through the house. A person who ate it at an Indian food event in Japan noted that it had the flavors of ghee and brown sugar and that the rice was soft and chewy.
Glossary
- Adisil
- A Tamil name for dishes of rice or other ingredients cooked until soft.
- Jaggery
- A sweetener made by boiling down sugarcane juice or palm sap.
- Ghee
- Clarified butter made by removing the water and milk solids from butter.
- Mung beans
- Beans widely eaten in South Asia and elsewhere. They are sometimes used split.
- Andal
- A Tamil poet and saint.
- Ramanuja
- A Hindu thinker who appears in devotional narratives.
- Ashwin Rajagopalan
- A writer who writes about memories of home food.
