Kalkandu Oats Payasam/Rock candy Oats kheer

Kalkandu Oats Payasam/Rock candy Oats kheer is a yummy and creamy dessert prepared with heart healthy oats.
Another variety of rock candy prepared from Palm is Panakarkandu, which is very good for health. I have already posted Panakarkandu payasam using this kalkandu.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Oats
• 1 litre whole milk (approximately 4 cups)
• 3/4 cup Kalkandu (adjust according to your sweet tooth)
• A pinch Saffron
• 1/4 tsp Cardamom powder
• 4-5 Cashews
• 6-8 Almonds/Badam
• 1 tbsp Ghee

Method:

1) Soak Cashews and Almonds for 1 hour in warm water.

2) Heat ghee in a kadai and add oats. Leave it to fry in low flame till nice aroma arises.

2) Now add milk and leave the oats to get cooked in milk by maintaining medium flame. Add a ladle to the milk to avoid spilling also with occasional stirring.

3) Peel the skin of Almonds/Badam and grind it along with cashew to coarse paste.

4)  Once the oats gets half cooked, add saffron threads and leave it get cooked for few more time. If you don't want to add the saffron directly to boiling milk then you can soak the saffron threads in a small bowl of warm milk for half an hour and press the soaked saffron to release colour. Now add this saffron milk to boiling milk.

5) After oats gets completely cooked, add the ground nuts paste. 

6) Next add the Kalkandu/Rock candies and leave it to boil for few more minutes so that the kalkandu gets dissolved completely. If you don't prefer to add directly then you can grind it along with nuts.

7) Finally add cardamom powder and switch off the flame. This Payasam becomes thick after some time, so let it have more milk to get absorbed latter.

Yummy Kalkandu oats payasam is ready.

Tips:

1) You can make the same payasam with sugar replacing Rock candy.

2) If you don't have time to soak the nuts, you can dry grind the nuts to coarse powder and add.