Hearty Wishes and Recipes!

Wish You All My Blogger Friends My Belated New Year Wishes!

Wishing You All A Very Happy Pongal!

Happy to see you all back and sorry all my friends for not being regular in blogging and its all my because of my health condition. We celebrated Pongal yesterday happily and performed Pooja and prepared Ghee Rice, Lemon Rice and Sweet Pongal for Neivedyam. Lets see my style of cooking all these three Rice dishes as it is very common recipe in all homes but everyone try in their own style to suit their taste.

Sweet Pongal / Sakkarai Pongal

Ingredients:

Raw Rice - 1 cup
Grated Jaggery - 1 cup
Split Green Gram / Moong Dhal - 1/2 cup
Cashews - 15
Dry Grapes / Raisins - 15
Cardamom Powder - 1/4 tsp
Ghee - little less than 1/4 cup

Cooking Instructions:

Wash rice and strain the water completely. Pressure cook the rice with 3 cups of water for about 4 whistles in high flame or until it is well cooked and keep it in a separate bowl. Roast the green gram in a dry pan for few seconds until it smells good. Now pressure cook the green gram with 1 cup of water for 4 whistles and mix it along with the cooked rice. Mix the cooked rice and cooked green gram together and keep it aside. Heat one teaspoon of ghee in a small pan and fry cashews and raisins in it and keep it aside.

Soak jaggery in a little amount of water(water level should be just above the powdered jaggery) and strain it to remove the dust. Heat melted Jaggery in a simmer flame for about 5 minutes and no need to test the consistency. Add ghee, cardamom powder, cooked rice and green gram in the jaggery syrup and cook in slow flame until the desired thickness is achieved. Garnish it with fried cashews and raisins and now Sweet
Jaggery Pongal is ready to serve!

Ghee Rice:

Ingredients:

Raw Rice - 1 cup
Water - 2 cups
Pepper - 2 tsp
Cumin Seeds - 2 tsp
Cashews - 15
Curry Leaves - few
Asafoetida - 1/4 tsp
Ghee - 7 tsp
Cooking oil - 5 tsp
Salt - to taste

Cooking Instructions:

Wash rice and strain the water completely. Add 2 cups of water in pressure cooker and bring it to boil. Now add rice, salt and stir it well and bring it to boil. Close the pressure cooker and simmer the flame and cook for about 10 minutes. Once the pressure in the cooker is left, spread the rice in a large plate and let it cool for 5 to 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat ghee and oil together in a pan and fry cashews, peppercorns, cumin seeds, asafoetida, and curry leaves and let it cool for a minute. Now add this sauteed items in the rice and mix well. Ghee Rice is ready to serve!

Lemon Rice