Category: Tamil New Year Recipes

We celebrate our New Year only in the spring as the Tamil New Year falls on April 14 or 15. So we decorate the deities at home with brightly-coloured fragrant flowers the previous night and offer luscious sweet-smelling fruits to them. The next day we perform a pooja at the dawn of New Year and seek the divine blessings for the whole year. We also prepare an elaborate meal to tease our palates with all the six flavours of our traditional cuisine. This tradition encourages us to embrace the varied seasons of our life gracefully. Here you can find the Tamil New Year (Chithirai Vishu) recipes commonly prepared in our family:

Jackfruit Payasam (Chakka Pradhaman)

Lately, jackfruits have grown increasingly popular due to their hypoglycaemic property. The flour made using unpalatable jackfruit fibers storms into the kitchens across the globe. Nevertheless, jackfruit trees were the most commonly grown trees in South India. We grew up relishing sweet jackfruit bulbs during summer vacations. Every summer reminds me of the ceremonious preparation of jackfruit at my grandmother’s kitchen that was filled with a unique fruity fragrance. Even today, we don’t miss to relish these sweetest luscious fruit bulbs and the most delicious fruit dessert, jackfruit payasam (chakka pradhaman), every summer.

Mukkani Payasam

Reading Panchangam (an almanac prepared based on Indian calendar system) is an age-old custom followed every year on the day of Tamil New Year celebrated in the middle of April. A few centuries ago it was a customary that royal priests were summoned to read a new Panchangam in the king’s court mentioning important dates of the year and also foretelling the calamities like flood, war, etc. Even today every TV channel telecasts the speech rendered by astrologers predicting the next prime minister, rain fall, gold price, etc. that are of great interest to people of all walks of life .

Veppampoo Pachadi

Generally, we prefer to welcome every new beginning with sweets, but we follow a unique tradition of preparing an elaborate meal of different flavours (arusuvai virudhu) on the occasion of Chithirai Vishu (New Year) celebrated on the 14th or 15th of April every year. It is actually an Ayurvedic tradition to stimulate all the parts of our palate by taking a nourishing meal of six flavours like sweet, sour, bitter, astringent, salt & pungent. This also encourages us to embrace each season, or every change in our life gracefully. So we never miss to include the bitter ingredient, neem flower that blooms plentifully in this season, into our New Year feast (Vishu sadhya). We prepare the traditional veppampoo pachadi, a confluence of all the six tastes, using neem flowers and many other ingredients.

Neem flower rasam

As a child I hated few things imposed by my grandparents during our visit every summer. It was disgusting to find all our clothes reeked of bitter neem oil as they were washed using neem detergents. We also disliked to gobble up extremely bitter balls made of neem leaves paste forcibly given by our grandmother. But now I have been yearning for such eco-friendly chemical-free detergents suitable for my washing machine, and also I feel guilty to give de-worming tablet to my son as I am unable to persuade him to take the home-made herbal substitute available plentiful around us. Nevertheless I feel contented that I can prepare delicious soup using neem flowers that possess almost same properties as that of neem leaves.

Ada Pradhaman

Although Navrathri in south India is synonymous with savoury sundal, traditionally sweet payasam is also offered for neivedhyam during Navarathri. I have prepared ada pradhaman, a creamy dessert popular in Kerala & southern Tamilnadu. Onam sadhya menu is incomplete without ada pradhaman. I still remember the delicious ada pradhaman prepared by my aunt lived in Nagercoil and I thank her for introducing us such a sweet delicacy.

Aval Puttu

Aval puttu is a traditional sweet prepared using beaten rice mainly for Chithirai Vishu (Tamil New Year). We usually offer this sweet dish to the deities at home as neivedyam during festivals especially Chithirai Vishu and also serve as prasadam during Navarathri. Beaten rice (rice flakes) is easily digestible, and the gluten in rice is reduced to a large extent when beaten. So we can also serve aval puttu as a light healthy snack on other days.

Mango pachadi

Mango pachadi is a sweet, sour & spicy jam prepared to welcome the Tamil New Year. It is a delicious side dish for rice and goes well with any kuzhambu or rasam. Also we serve this dish with the traditional ulutham paruppu sadam or black gram rice.