Ven Pongal

Ingredients

• Par boiled rice - 1 cup
• Split moong dal - 1/2 cup + 1 tbsp
• Ghee - 1/4 cup
• Hing - 1/4 tsp
• Ginger - 1 tbsp
• Cumin - 1 tsp
• Pepper corns - 1 tsp
• Green chilly (optional) - 1
• Curry leaves - 2 sprigs
• Cashew - 2 tbsp

Method

• Wash & pressure cook (for 1 cup of rice add 5 cups of water) the dal & rice together (app 5 whistles).
• Heat 1 tbsp of ghee in the pan & fry the cashews till it becomes golden brown.
• Remove it from the ghee soon & add it to the cooked rice with some salt.
• Now in the same pan splutter cumin seeds, pepper corns, curry leaves, green chillies & hing one by one.
• Add more ghee if needed. Roast it for 1 minute. Now pour this mixture in the pongal & mix well.
• Add the remaining 2 tbsp of ghee & mix well.
• Serve it hot with coconut chutney.

Tips for the recipe - You can add little milk while cooking the rice, so that the pongal becomes more soft. I add salt later because I always cook venpongal & sweet pongal together. Once the rice is cooked, I take half of rice to prepare sweet pongal & then mix the salt to the remaining ven pongal while doing the seasoning. If you are making only ven pongal then you can add salt in the water & cook the rice.