Pongal or Huggi is a popular South Indian rice dish that has roots in Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. Pongali which means "bubbled up" refers to the modern day pongal whereas huggi- derived from the old kannad word for this dish meaning "bubbled up", ballooned"-refers to an ancient form of this dish with whole grains instead of white polished ones.
Pongal is a traditional Indian dish that can be served as either sweet or savory. Sweet pongal, also known as chakarai pongal, starts with lentils and rice being boiled together in water until they're soft while adding jaggery sugar to them for flavor. This process of boiling the ingredients creates steam which then cooks down into a syrup-like consistency due to its high concentration of sugars that won't solidify like other starches do when cooled enough (much like what happens during making jam). Spicy venn Pongals are made from clarified butter instead; these dishes typically start with onion paste followed by various spices such as cumin seeds and Telugu chilli powder.
This sweet recipe is cooked during sankaranti or any auspicious days as neiveidhya to God. Jaggery is good substitute for white sugar, cardamom powder is good for digestion, rice is rich in carbohydrate, moong dal is rich in protein and ghee is a good for lubricator or brain if used in small amount. So this is tasty as well as healthy recipe. Let us see how this is done.
Wash and drain rice and dal. Pressure cook until 5-6 whistles so that it is cooked well.
In the meantime crush jaggery and dissolve in just enough water and drain to remove any dirt/dust.
Keep in stove in a heavy bottomed vessel or cooker and boil jaggery.
When 1-string consistency has arrived stir in cooked rice and dal mix and mix well so that rice and jaggery mix well. Add milk and little water if needed and ghee and mix well.
Cook in low flame stirring often.
When everything mixes well add cardamom powder and fried nuts and mix well and pour some ghee on top of it.
Now hot sweet pongal is ready to serve.
Servings 4
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily value may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.