Palada pradhaman ice cream
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
An ice cream goodie box arrives from Boomerang. Curious, I scoop up a spoonful of the creamy indulgence and smile heartily. With every scoop of the melt-in-the mouth ice cream, I also bite into soft, chewy little flakes of the velvety palada pradhaman, the much-loved Onam treat. The new flavour blends the milky sweetness of the familiar pradhaman into a creamy scoop, a delicious meeting of the quintessential Onam dessert and ice cream. It is the result of Boomerang’s collaboration with A1 Chips.“It is not easy to do a fusion. You cannot just take palada pradhaman and freeze it,” says Vanjimuthu Palaniswamy, director of Boomerang, adding that there is a lot of science that goes into this. “This is not about sales, it is about showcasing our capabilities.” For Boomerang, the collaboration is an opportunity to showcase its product-development capabilities and the science behind its ice creams.It took months of trials and a careful balancing of flavours to turn A1 Chips’ palada pradhaman into ice cream. The challenge, however, was preserving the character of palada. “When frozen, the ada can become hard and crunchy, unlike the soft texture expected of the traditional dessert. Our team had to carefully balance the mix so that the ada retained its softness while blending seamlessly into the ice cream,” explains Vanjimuthu adding that the idea was first explored with A1 several years ago. The initial trials took about two months but the project was put on hold during the pandemic before being revived this year for Onam.For Sudeesh Dhamodaran, joint managing director of A1 Chips, which makes a variety of sweets and savouries, the starting point was the short shelf life of palada pradhaman, which is best when consumed fresh. He wanted to explore whether technology could extend its shelf life without compromising its authenticity or adding unnecessary ingredients. That led him to Tarun Vanjimuthu, who handles new product development at Boomerang and has been trained in food-technology in Australia.
