My Scrawls

Pongal is the harvest festival celebrated in Tamilnadu on the first day of the Tamil month “Thai”. Rest of India celebrates this harvest festival as “Makar Sankaranthi” or “Lohri”. Starting from this year, Pongal/Thai thirunaal officially marks the beginning of the Tamil New Year!

Sakkarai Pongal - Sarkarai Pongal is prepared with the fresh milk and the harvested rice in the mud pot and offered (as neivedhaiyam) to the lord Surya(Sun God).

Here is the Sakkarai Pongal recipe that I prepared in the pressure cooker. This being my first Pongal away from home, I made my maiden attempt to try out the Sakkarai Pongal recipe.

Sakkarai Pongal - Sarkarai Pongal

Ingredients:

Raw rice – 1 cup
Moong Dall (Paiyatham parupu) – 1 cup
Jaggery – 2.75 cups
Cashews – few
Ghee – 2 tbsp
Elachi (Cardamom) powder – 1 tbsp

Preparation Method:

1. Pressure cook rice and moong dal
2. Add little water to jaggery and heat it in low flame.
3. Stir the jaggery till it melts and dissolves completely in water. Then remove it from the
       stove.
4. Now add the cooked rice and elachi powder to the jaggery syrup and stir it such that
       the cooked rice and the syrup mix very well.
5. Heat ghee and fry the cashews in it.
6. Add the cashews to the Pongal.

The recipe did come out very well. “Divine as kovil prasadam” was the comment from Ganesha. Sakkarai Pongal was sweet, but sweetest was the compliment from my hubby pie