VEN PONGAL | GHEE PONGAL RECIPE

   
    Ven pongal is a very easy and comfort food. Mostly in weekend mornings I make it to laze around. In contrast to Vj, Aj won’t even touch this one. I make it only with chutney if I want to make it simple. But brinjal or any sort of gothsu will be great side dish for pongal. Even tiffin sambar will be great accompaniment. But I love it both with sambar and chutney together. Having said pongal is easy job at kitchen, its tricky too to get the right consistency. I have struggled a lot to get it right. Now for only us I make it perfect, but if I need to make for more people, I am not still that confident to make it. Sometimes the pongal becomes so dry or so watery. But I have some trouble shooting ideas now if I run into trouble. Will add as notes in the bottom. A reader asked me to share the recipe and here you go Jaishree…

INgredients

Raw rice	1 cup
Moong dal/pasi paruppu	1/4 cup
Water	4 cups
Salt	as needed
Ginger chopped	1 tblsp
Asafoetida	1 pinch

To temper

Ghee	2 tblsp
Pepper	2 tsp
Jeera	2 tsp
Curry leaves	1 sprig
Asafoetida	2 pinches
Cashews	5-6

 

Method

An optional step is to roast the moong dal for extra flavour. Wash rice and dal together. Heat a small cooker with a tsp of ghee. Fry ginger and asafoetida for few seconds. Add 4 cups of water,bring to boil. Add the washed rice,dal,salt and pressure cook for 4 whistles in medium flame.Wait until pressure gets released by itself,open & mash.  Season with the items given under to temper table. First add ghee, when hot add pepper and let it start splutter and then switch off the flame. Add cashews and fry till it starts golden and then lastly add jeera. Add curry leaves and asafoetida lastly. Mix in the heat well and then add it to pongal and mix well.

   Serve it super hot with gothsu or chutney  as an accompaniment. I made gothsu with potato and carrot the other day and ginger chutney.
   

Notes

If the pongal is watery when you open, then you can try keeping it again in stove and mix well until water evaporates.(only if the rice has got cooked,otherwise you can again give 2 whistles). For the given measurement, the recipe will be perfect, but still saying these for emergency/trouble shooting. If it is too dry/thick then add some milk to bring it to desired consistency. Again, the rice should have got cooked properly. Make sure you dont burn jeera while frying, as it changes the whole taste of pongal. If you want/like pepper flavour, you can add 2 tsps of pepper coarse powder to the pongal lastly while mixing. It gives a great flavour and turns more spicy. If you want, you can temper first, then add ginger and washed rice, add water and cook too. Not that the tempering has to be done at the end. You can add turmeric 1/8 tsp for an ‘yellow looking” pongal. One of my maamis use dalda 50% for making pongal and it tastes great, but its not advisable for health.

     Sending this picture I clicked while making pongal for Black and white Wednesday hosted by Siri this time.

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