Friday, September 25, 2009

Sweet Pongal

Ingredients

Moong dhal - 1/2 cup.
Rice - 1/2 cup.
Milk
Coconut
cashew
jaggery
raisins (khish-mish - dry grapes)
cardamom
ghee.

Fry the moong dhal (before washing) till it becomes little light brown (it
will start smelling). Then soak rice and dhal separately for 10 minutes.
Thoroghly wash and keep it in cooker with the right water (lesser is o.k)and
cook it seperately (in two different containers). Meanwhile cut coconut in
very small pieces and fry in ghee. Fry cashew and raisins also separately.
Break the jagerry and put in water (very little) and make a syrup. This is
done because sometimes jagerry has mud and stones. After we make the syrup
strain it through tea strainer. Put the rice and dhal in a big vessel and
add milk (may be one cup) and cook it till all the milk gets absorbed. Add
jaggery syrup and again cook till even it gets absorbed. Add three big table
spoons of ghee, powdered cardamon and cook again for a while. Add fried
coconut, cashews and raisins.

Rava Pongal

Ingredients

Rava 1 cup
moong dal 1/3 cup
water 4 1/2 cup
salt 3/4 tsp
cashews 1 tsp(broken)
ghee 4 tbs
curry leaves
ginger 1/2 tsp
peppercorn 1 tsp
cumin seeds 1/2 tsp

Method:

1. In a dry pan add rava and fry it till raw smell goes off.
2. Remove it from the pan and keep aside.
3. To the pan, add 2 tsp of ghee and fry peppercorn and cumin for 2 mins at medium heat.
4. Grind this to a powder and keep aside.
5. Add the remaining ghee and fry cashews, curryleaves, ginger and keep aside.
6. In a thick vessel add moong dal and fry till it smells or golden brown.
7. Add 1 1/2 cup of water to dal and 1/2 cook.
8. In a cooker place a vessel containing remaining water, rava and the seasoning mixture.
9. Bring to boil and stir the mixture.
10. Add weight and cook it for 8-10 mins.
11. Add ghee when it is removed from the stove.
12. Eat it with coconut chutney.

Paal Pongal

Ingredients:
1 cup of Raw Rice
2 cups of Milk
2 cups Water
Salt to Taste

Method:
Boil Water in a pot and add Rice when water boils.
Add milk to this when rice is half cooked.
Add salt to taste (add little less salt than you add normally) and stir well.
Stop cooking after the rice is fully cooked and the mixture is 90% Solid.

This rice can be had with any curry or simply with jagerry and banana