Oats Pongal

Original Recipe is from Raks Kitchen. I wanted mine squishy mushy. So I added more water than what she mentioned in the original recipe. It was really yummy. thanks Raks for sharing the recipe

Bisibelebath 2 - Leftover special

Well this is something my MIL made last week using the left over Pongal she made for breakfast. She finished all the cooking work in the morning along with the breakfast work and we went out for shopping. She forgot to keep rice and when we returned after all those shopping trips, we both were really tired and we all were hungry and the kids became cranky. Since she had made eggplant sambar and godhsu as side dish for pongal, she said she will make quick bisibelebath with leftover pongal. I was not sure how it will come out but she was very confident and she started making arrangements for making the dish. I am just gonna give the quantity of pongal, godhsu and sambar she used to make this. Hope this will help...

Ingredients:-

1. Pongal - 3 cups (leftover finished pongal)
2. Godhsu - 1/4 cup (leftover)
3. Sambar - 1/2 cup (finished samabr)
4. Garam masala - 3/4 teaspoon
5. Salt to taste (if necessary)

For Seasoning:-

1. Oil - 1 tbsp
2. Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
3. Red chillies - 2
4. Cashewnuts - few
5. curry leaves - to garnish.

Heat a pan, put the godhsu (tomato & onion godhsu), add required amount of water and let it boil for another couple of minutes. Now add sambar, garam masala powder and salt (if necessary) and let everything mix and boil for few minutes. Now add the leftover pongal to the mixture and mix everything well and let it cook for another 5 to 7 minutes. Add water according to the required consistency. Turn off the stove and keep it aside. Now seasoning for this rice is purely optional because, we would have seasoned pongal, godhsu and also sambar. In order to add some more taste, we can season this with cashews. Fry cashew nuts to golden brown and pour it on top of the rice and garnish it with curry leaves. Frankly speaking friends, the taste of this bisibelebath was much better than the original one we do. It was really good along with the cumin and pepper taste.

Happy Pongal

"Happy Pongal to all my friends here"

Pongal used to be my favorite festival and I enjoy preparing pongal in clay pot with lots and lots of fruits and sugar cane especially on both sides of the pot. Even now I can visualise those days when I was in school, my patti make all the arrangements to cook pongal. Me and my cousins stand next to my patti and enjoy those rituals. The main purpose of standing is the sugar cane which we were all crazy about... Since we lived in an Agraharam, very near to temple, Makara Deepam festival is celebrated every year in a very grand manner and it comes during this Pongal days and my uncle is a member in that festival committee, so most of the members will come to our house for lunch and dinner, nearly for a week, till the festival gets over on 16th January every year. Our house will be full of people for more than 10 days. When I called yesterday to greet all my relatives, I talked to more than 10 people over phone. I miss them all so much here. For the past 6 years, I don't do much pooja or something on pongal. I just make chakkara Pongal (sweet pongal) and offer it to god and serve it to my husband and kids. Because 6years back, on the same day, my mom died and after that I stopped doing all these rituals. But this year, my patti(mom's mom) asked me to do pooja and the rituals on Kanu like preparing variety rice etc., so that it might help my girls to learn all those rituals. So this year I made both venpongal and chakkara pongal and did pooja today morning. Felt like recovering from something :).... Alright, coming back to the business, here is the recipe for Chakkara Pongal (sweet Pongal)I made today.

Ingredients:-

1. Raw rice - 3/4 cup
2. Moong dhall - 1/4 cup
3. Turmeric powder - a pinch
4. Jaggery - 1 1/2 cup (or acc to taste)
5. Water - 2 to 3 cups
6. Ghee - 2 to 3 tsp
7. Pacha karpooram (Edible Camphor) - a pinch
8. Cardamom - 1
   
9. Cashews - few
10. Raisins - few.

This is the step I followed to make chakkara pongal. First cook rice and dhall with 3cups of water. Cook it upto 4 or 5 whistles. When the pressure is released, take it out and mash it. In the mean time, take a heavy bottomed pan, dissolve jaggery with a cup or two of water, add pacha karpooram, cardamom and bring it to boil. Now add the mashed rice to jaggery and mix it well. Add water to adjust the consistency. In a small pan, pre heat ghee, fry cashews and raisins to golden brown and pour it on top of chakkara pongal. You can get the recipe for venpongal here.

I am sending this recipe to Priti's Makara Sankranti Festival event.

Pongal

This is a breakfast receipe. In south India, this is a famous breakfast dish along with Idly and Dosai. This is how I make Pongal. Most of you may know the ingredients and the method for making pongal. This is for the new cooks. The main ingredients are as follow..

Ingredients:-

1. Rice - 1 cup (measuring cup)
2. Moong dal - 1/2 dal (measuring cup)
3. Ginger - a small piece
4. Pepper - 1 tbsp
5. cumin seeds - 1/2 tbsp
6. mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
7. Asafoetida powder - one pinch
8. Salt to taste
9. Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp
   
10. Cashews - 6 or 7
11. curry leaves - 1- to 15 leaves
12. Oil - 2 tbsp
13. Ghee - 1 tbsp

First wash the rice and Moong Dal and soak it in water for 10 mts. In the mean time, we can finish our seasoning. Take a seasoning pan, preheat the oil, add mustard seeds when it splutters, add pepper+cumin seeds+cashews+curry leaves+curry leaves+ginger and asafoetida powder in the oil and fry it for a minute. Do not burn it. Now take a pressure pan, put the rice and dal in it and pour water in the ratio of 1:5 (Pongal should not be like fried rice so we can add 5 cups of water to 1 cup of rice. Now add the mustard, pepper etc mix to the rice and add the turmeric powder and salt to it. Pressure cook this upto 5 to 6 full whistles. After pressure is released, open the pan and pour the 1 tbsp ghee in it and again close the pan for few mts. Now Pongal is ready to serve. Serve it hot with Tomato godhsu or coconut chutney.

Note: We can also grind the raw pepper and cumin seeds before adding it with mustard seeds. In that case, it will easy for the kids to eat pepper. Try this and lemme know your comments