Pongal/Venn Pongal

Pongal/Venn Pongal

Venn pongal is a must in any south Indian breakfast menu. Go to any muhurtham or graha pravesham or pre-wedding nalungu or nichayathaartham or any other functions in the mornings which calls for breakfast, definitely it will have venn pongal in the menu along with idli, vadai, poori, iddiyappam or rava kichadi. Nobody has ever had the resistance to plan a breakfast menu for a South Indian function or a festival without pongal. There is another funny quote which goes like "if you want to have a sound sleep.. you can either have a sleeping pill or a plate of pongal with sambar chutney".😝

For more breakfast recipes click here - Breakfast

Venn Pongal

Yeah, I know.. there are lot of cashews in the above picture, because it is my serving of pongal. I like it this way. 😋
It will be incomplete if I don't talk about the delicious aroma of the tempering. When I talk about the tempering.. I am sure your olfactory sensory neurons will recollect the pleasing aroma. Come on.. look at the participants for tempering.. ginger, pepper, cumin, asafoetida and curry leaves.. all these dive into the hot oil to spread the amazing aroma of pongal tempering.. tempting even a neighbour to think "...yaaru veetuleyo pongal thaalikuraanga"

The tempering Stars

Pongal is a soul food. It is such a friendly food which goes pally with many side dishes. I am here happy to share this one of my favourite breakfast recipe.. the way I make it...

Ingredients:

• Raw rice - 1/2 cup
• Moong dhal - 1/2 cup
• Water - 2 and 1/2 cups
• Salt - as required
• Cashew nuts - 1 tablespoon
• Ghee - 2 teaspoon

Tempering ingredients:

• Ginger - 1 inch (chopped)
• Pepper corns - 1 teaspoon
• Cumin - 1 teasapoon
• Asafoetida - 1/4 teaspoon
• Curry leaves
• Oil - 1 Tablespoon

Procedure:

• Wash the rice and soak the rice and dhal together for 30 minutes.
• Add 2 and 1/2 cups of water to the rice and dhal with enough salt. You can replace half cup of water with milk too to make the pongal creamier. Now pressure cook this rice and dhal for 10 to 15 minutes.
• Heat some oil in a small pan. Add the tempering ingredients to the oil once it is hot. 
• Transfer this to the cooked rice-dhal.
• Heat 1 teaspoon of ghee and roast the cashews and add it to the pongal. 
• Add the remaining 1 teaspoon of ghee on the hot pongal to melt. Stir well. Now the legendary pongal is ready.

As I said before.. pongal is a polite food which goes well with sambar, chutney, brinjal gosthu, peanut chutney and tomato chutney. Even the previous day's kathirikai murungakai sambar makes an excellent side dish for pongal. One of my best buddy L shares her pongal with vatha kozhambu which I always relish. I can just eat it without a side dish if the pongal happens to be perfect!

Happy cooking !!