Celebrations : Sakkarai Pongal | Pongal Recipe

Wishing all my readers and friends a "Happy Pongal". Everyone have their own childhood memories about our Indian Festivals especially Pongal. It talks about our legacy and holds a very special place in our hearts. Pongal is a South Indian festival celebrated to thank the Sun god for giving us a good harvest. A rice porridge called the "Pongal" is made with the first grain and offered to the Sun god on this day. There are so many varities of pongal, usually the sweet pongal made with jaggery is specially made on this day and it surely gives the festive touch with the aroma of ghee and cardamom.

Normally in India, Pongal is made in earthern pots but nowadays everywhere it is only pressure cooker pongal. Lack of space and time have made us learn some cut shorts, but we should make sure that we pass on the legacy to the next generation as our parents did to us. I'm trying my level best to have Shweets involved in all the celebrations and explain her what all we used when we were kids. She is so full of excitement and loves to hear such stories. With all that being said I will come to recipe for the Sakkarai Pongal I prepared today to celebrate P O N G A L !

Preparation Time : 10 min

Cooking Time: 15 min

Serves : 4

Ingredients

Raw Rice - 1 cup
Moong Dal - 6 tbsp
Jaggery - 1 cup
Cardamom - 5 no
Sugar - 1 pinch
Ghee - 2 tsps
Cashews - 15 no
Raisins - 8 no

Preparation

• Dry roast the Moong dal in medium high heat until aroma comes out.
• Grind the cardamom seeds with the pinch of sugar into a fine powder.
• Fry the cashews and raisins in 1 tsp ghee and keep aside. 

Method

• Wash and cook the rice and dal together with the remaining 1 tsp ghee. For 1 cup rice add 3 cups water and cook for about 3 whistles.
• When the rice is cooking, mix the jaggery with 1 cup water in a heavy bottomed vessel and boil it in medium high heat stirring at regular intervals.
• Jaggery should be boiled until it reaches string consistency, that is it should not get dissolved when a drop is added to a cup of water.
• Once pressure is released from the cooker, smash the rice and dal mixture, add the jaggery liguid after straining it through a filter to remove impurities.
• Mix all the contents well, add the ground cardamom powder, fried cashews and raisins along with the ghee and cook in medium low heat for about 3 mins. Serve Hot.

Notes

• Make sure you taste your jaggery before you start some are too sweet so adjust according to your taste.
• While cooking rice and dal you can add 2 tbsps of milk to make it more richer.