Sweet Pongal or Chakkara Pongal
Sweet pongal or chakkara pongal is a delicacy, traditionally made from freshly harvested rice cooked with dal, jaggery and spiced up with edible camphor and cardamom
Servings: 5
Ingredients
- ¾ Cup Raw Rice dry roasted
- ¼ Cup Split green gram/moong dal dry roasted
- 3 Cups of water to pressure cook rice
- 1 Cup Jaggery dissolved in ½ cup hot water
- ¼ Cup Ghee Clarified butter, divided
- 10 Cashews
- 10 Raisins
- Some Dry Coconut Pieces Cubed
- 1/2 tsp Cardamom Powder
- A tiny pinch of edible camphor Crushed
Instructions
- Wash dry roasted rice and dal, pressure cook along with 3 cups of water for 2 whistles and then simmer for about 5 minutes and turn off the heat.
- In the mean time, heat dissolved jaggery over medium heat until it comes to boil. Turn off the heat and strain it to remove any impurities.
- Now melt the 2 teaspoons of ghee in a small skillet over medium heat and fry raisins till they puff up. Next fry cashews and coconut pieces till golden brown in the 2 teaspoons of ghee one after the other. Turn off the heat and keep the fried stuff aside.
- Once the pressure subsides, open the lid of the pressure cooker and mash it well.
- Add strained jaggery syrup and cook well on medium heat for 5 minutes. When it starts getting dry add ghee little by little and keep stirring till you get the right consistency.
- Turn off the heat, add the cardamom and camphor powder.
- Finally add the fried cashews, raisins and coconut pieces, mix well.
- Serve hot drizzled with some ghee.
Recipe Video
Notes
- Amount of ghee is purely individual taste. The only major difference would be that the sweet pongal may not melt in your mouth. If you are health conscious, you can reduce the amount of ghee and still enjoy without compromising completely on the taste.
- If the rice dal mixture is too thick once it is cooked, you can add some water or milk and mash.
- Adjust water quantity depending on the quality of rice- new or old. New rice need less water to get cooked when compared to old rice.
- The colour of pongal differs with colour of jaggery.
- Do not boil jaggery to string consistency.
- Ensure very little use of camphor (less than a tiny pinch), otherwise the sweet pongal becomes bitter and dominates the taste of pongal.