Pongal | Ghee Pongal | Khara Pongal

Delicious Khara Pongal | Ghee Pongal recipe which will be ready within 15 minutes with step by step photos.

Happy Pongal dear friends!!..

Khara Pongal / Ghee Pongal is the main dish prepared during the popular festival of Hindus in South India called Pongal. A harvest and thanksgiving festival marking the start of spring. Also called as Ven Pongal, which literally means ‘White Pongal’. For which, you just need to avoid turmeric in the recipe. For this recipe also(which I’m going to share), addition of turmeric is totally optional.

Pongal is a rice based dish prepared mainly with newly harvested rice, which brings out the mashed consistency of the dish. But, if you don’t have a new batch of raw new rice, old rice (which we usually use for daily cooking) will also work well with little more water needed to get the right consistency.

We usually prepare this for breakfast or for brunch. It’s one of our comfort food and quick and easy to prepare. Whenever I make Pongal, I try to make all the side dishes for it if time allows. Otherwise, sambar is enough for us. The side dishes which goes along with ven Pongal are vegetable sambar, coconut chutney and Parupa Vada. Will soon share the recipes for vada and coconut chutney. You can even make medhu vada.

Ven Pongal | Ghee Pongal

Cook Time : 8 minutes

Passive Time : 5 minutes

Servings : 4 people

Measurements used:- 1 cup = 250 ml; 1 tbsp = 15 ml; 1 tsp = 5 ml

Ingredients:

Into the cooker:

1 cup Raw rice
1/2 cup Split yellow moong dal
5 cups Water
3 tsp Salt
1 tsp Jeera whole
1/4 tsp Turmeric

Tempering:

2 tbsp Ghee
1 Handful Cashews
1 tbsp ginger crushed in mixie
2 tsp Pepper lightly crushed
1 tsp Jeer

Instructions:

Dry roast the yellow split moong dal till you smell a nice aroma. Wash it 2-3 times along with 1 cup of rice.

2. Add all the ingredients mentioned under ‘Into the cooker’. Let it come to boil. Close the lid with the whistle on. Cook for 4 whistles.

3. Crush together ginger, whole pepper and jeera.

4. Heat a tadka pan. Pour ghee and fry cashews till evenly golden brown. Take out all the cashews and add it to the cooked rice dal in the cooker.

5. In the same ghee, add the crushed ginger mix and fry for few seconds and pour the whole mixture to the cooker. Combine everything well and serve hot with sambar and chutney.