Paruthi Paal, or Cottonseed Milk

Now here’s a drink just right for the cooler months of the year, which feels like an egg-nog with neither egg nor nog but just because it’s creamy, warm, and spiced. You just have to live in a cotton growing belt, or have access to a naattu marunthu (country medicine) supplier who can get you a handful or two of cottonseeds.

Yes, you heard me, cottonseeds. Parutthi kottai.

Who would ever have thought that the “milk” extracted from cottonseed otherwise fed to dairy cows as byproduct from cotton cash cropping could be so delicious, and could have a dozen benefits besides, from aiding in lactation for nursing mums (we’re cows like that, too, right? 😅), to regulating menstrual cycles, to soothing raspy throats and (potentially) counteracting H. pylori-induced acidity and stomach ulceration? Here’s an article that tells you more, for you unbelievers out there.

Such is the genius of those rural communities living around Tamil Nadu cotton-growing belts, I guess. I don’t have proof of this, but we know that cottonseed is used as cattle feed–and observant farming families noted the effects on milking cows, and went from there to human applications.

Who says that science happens only in labs with people in white coats?

Fundamentally, this is treated as a mineral-nutrient-rich energy drink. With the addition of chukku (dry ginger), chithirathai (lesser galangal—which magically combines the fragrance of eucalyptus with the sweetness of cinnamon), elakka (cardamom), and thippili (long pepper)—karupetti (palm jaggery) for sweetness of one sort and thengai paal (coconut milk) for sweetness of another kind, it becomes at once all medicine and sheer delight. That’s 3 gingers + 1 pepper—for, yes, cardamom is a ginger family seed, too. Plus karupetti, which is known over and over for its throat-lungs healing values, often combined with ginger and black pepper to create gullet-nurturing kashayams.

Add this to the list of Madurai-famous “street foods,” right up there with the Jil jil jigarthanda and Madurai bhai ice cream that I’ve raved about. One cooling, the other warming! Right up there – and maybe beyond?

As with most recipes Indian and traditional, there are a few steps: soak, extract milk, boil, spice, serve.

In the soaking process, you’ll want to take care to check that you’ve got good cottonseed only. Bugs and poochis tend to get to these (cottonseed is an agricultural byproduct, after all). Here’s what the kernels we’re after look like (with the emptied ones behind!):

The the straining and milk extraction, which has to be done a few times to get all the milk out — and all the husk out!

After that, the heating and spicing is a cinch, done in a few minutes and thickened in a few more.

If you’d prefer to swipe through the recipe as I had it up on Instagram, that’s just below, followed by the written version after that. (You don’t need to be on Instagram to view it here; just hit the little arrows on the right to go forward).

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Paruthi Paal, or Cottonseed Milk

A warm, spiced, healing energy drink, made famously on street corners in Madurai from an agricultural byproduct–cottonseed!

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Ingredients

  

• 200-250 g paruthi kottai or cottonseed (yields 1 liter of milk)
• 2 tablespoons raw rice, soaked and ground to a paste (or substitute with rice flour+1/2 cup water)
• 1 cup karupetti or palm jaggery dissolved in a little water to form a syrup
• ½ teaspoon powdered dry ginger or chukka
• 1 teaspoon powdered chitthirathai or dry lesser galangal
• 2-3 cardamom pods, powdered
• Coconut milk extracted from 1 whole grated coconut

Instructions

 

The previous night:

• Rinse the cottonseed well several times and soak in water

The next morning:

• Rinse again, and pick out as many empty seeds as possible. Bugs tend to get to these, and you’ll find more than a few empty husks.
• Transfer to a blender, add fresh clean water to cover and blend. Add more water if needed.
• Extract the milk by straining over a cheesecloth. Use a spoon, and squeeze the cheesecloth with your hands.
• Add more water and blend again to extract the “second milk.”
• Now strain all the milk once more—trust me, it’s needed to get out all the husk bits remaining.
• Transfer the milk to a heavy-bottomed pan, and bring to a simmer.
• Once bubbles form, add the jaggery syrup. Mix well.
• Follow with the ½ cup rice paste and stir constantly as this thickens the paruthi paal. Bring to a rolling boil, but keep stirring.
• Add the spice mixture (saving a pinch or two to garnish), give it all a good stir, and switch off the flame. Transfer to a copper vessel, if you can, to store.

To serve:

• Fill a glass halfway with the hot parutthi paal and top with room temperature coconut milk.
• If you have any spice powder left-over, sprinkle on top. Garnish with freshly grated coconut.
• The paruthi paal without coconut milk stores well in the fridge for 2-3 days. Add coconut milk only when you wish to serve, or it will spoil much faster than that.