I am very fond of fruits and nungu is one of my most favourite fruit. Palm fruit is called as Nungu in Tamizh. It’s commonly known as Ice apple is English as it looks like ice. Nungu is a summer fruit. It has lot of water content and is rich in sodium and potassium and thus helps to prevent dehydration during summer. It helps to relieve all digestion problems like constipation, bloating, nausea and acidity. It is low in calories too. 100 grams of fruit has approximately only 45 calories. Nungu can also be used to treat skin rashes caused during summer.

I personally can eat nungu as a meal. This fruit is not very sweet. It has a very delicate flavour. I made payasam using Nungu couple of times at home and my family loved it. The flavour of nungu blends so beautifully with milk that I never felt like adding any extra flavouring agent like cardamom powder or any other essence.

This is my own recipe and as always easy to make and requires only basic ingredients. Having said that, this payasam seems to be a delicacy. Do try and give me your feedback:)

Ingredients

Milk – 1 litre

Chopped nungu- 2 cups

Sugar – 1/2 cup

Water – 1/4th cup

Saffron- 1/2 tsp

Method

1. Boil milk and let it reduce till it becomes half the quantity.

2. Add 2 tbsps of hot milk to the saffron and let it soak till the milk reduces.

3. Heat a pan, add sugar and water. Mix well and cook till it becomes a thick syrup.

4. Add the chopped nungu to the sugar syrup and let it rest.

5. Once the milk reduces to half, add the sugar syrup with chopped nungu, mix well and continue to cook till the milk further reduces to become thick.

6. When the payasam becomes thick enough, add the saffron soaked in milk and continue to cook for few mins.

7. Cool the payasam and serve the payasam chilled:)