VEN PONGAL | KHARA PONGAL | GHEE PONGAL
VEN PONGAL - This is yet another popular and delicious breakfast recipe in South India, particularly in Tamil Nadu. I could say this is one of the simplest recipe that is prepared with only two ingredients, rice and moongdal .
In just three steps your pongal is ready
First - rice and moongdal is cooked
Second - Ingredients to be tempered is sauted in ghee
Third - Both are mixed together.
There are different versions of preparing pongal and based on the way we cook the taste also differs a lot. Eventhough I have mentioned as the simplest recipe, there is always a good technique behind in preparing tasty pongal. Ghee plays a vital role in this dish as it enriches the taste , so don't avoid it.
In my version rice and moongdal is cooked and tempered with cumin , pepper, ginger, curry leaves and cashews sauted in ghee. I use pressure cooker to prepare my pongal, I know everyone uses the same way as I do as we all want to finish our cooking in a jiffy, but my MIL's preparation is entirely in a different way, she cooks the pongal in a heavy bottomed vessel without using the cooker and the tempering part is done with the homemade ghee. The taste is completely different and unique. My daughter always rates my MIL's recipe as the best and when I ask about my dish , so far I get only Ok or BETTER and you know all my weekends starts with pongal as breakfast as my lil one loves it.
The only difficulty in my MIL's version is patience, So friends , if you find time ,do try out preparing pongal without using pressure cooker and see the difference.
Serves : 2
Preparation time : 5 mins
Cooking time : 25 - 30 mins
