Moth Dal, Moong Dal Ven Pongal ~ Navratri Special Dishes

Today's neivedhyam was with Moth dal, Moong dal Ven Pongal. I make Ven Pongal in three different ways. This adds to the collection and is very healthy dish to boot. I recently picked up moth dal and have not cooked before. Deciding what to do, I thought making it as Ven Pongal was the best thing. I added Moong dal to make it more like the regular Ven pongal taste.

It would help if you soak the dal overnight. I simply roasted it and pressure cooked. That made it crunchy and not soft. Else otherwise the taste was simply superb.

Moth Dal

Moth Dal, Moong Dal Ven Pongal

Ingredients Needed:

Moth Dal - 1/4 cup
Moong Dal - 1/4 cup
Rice  - 1/4 cup
Salt to taste

For seasoning

Crushed Wholepepper - 1/2 tsp
Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves
Cashew nuts
Ghee - 2 tsp
Oil - 1 tsp

How to make the Ven pongal.

Soak the moth dal overnight. Drain and keep it aside.

Dry roast the moong dal and take the moth dal, moong dal and rice. Pressure cook for 3 whistles.

Once the pressure falls, heat a pan with oil and ghee, add whole peppercorn, cumin seeds, curry leaves and cashews.

When the cashews are roasted, pout this on the cooked pongal.

Serve as prasadam.

Ven Pongal Recipe
Pulagam aka Ven Pongal with a difference 
Rava Pongal
Whole Green Moong Dal Ven Pongal

The Sundal offered was Boiled Ground nuts.

Navaratri 2012 Recipes | Easy Recipes for Navratri

Indian Festival Foods

Rava Pongal, Broken Wheat Payasam | Navaratri Recipes | Step By Step Recipes

For the Day 6 of Navaratri Pooja, I made a pongal with Rava - Rava Pongal and Broken wheat Payasam.

Rava Pongal Recipe was the most simplest one you can get to make when you are pressed for time. Mondays are always pressed for time, we have few other things happening, plus the fact that you are still lazy with the aftereffects of Sunday. Kids have their school off this whole week. So they were so busy with their games, running around crazy.

Coming to the recipes for today, here's another interesting Pongal Recipe, made with Rava / Semolina. This is exactly the same way I made the Ven Pongal with crushed peppercorns. This version of pongal also turns out delicious, on top of being very quick to get done. The total cooking time is  as it only takes about 15 - 20 mins of cooking time. You don't have to soak anything here. 

Step by Step Picture Recipe

Rava Pongal | Ven Pongal with Rava

Ingredients

Rava / Semolina  - 1 cup
Split Yellow Moong Dal / Payatham paruppu - 1/2 cup

For Seasoning:

Cumin : 1/2 tsp
Peppercorn whole, crushed : 1/2 tsp
Salt to taste
Cashew few
Ghee - 2 tsp
Curry leaves few

How to make Rava Pongal:

Wash and microwave Yellow moong dal with 1 - 1 & 1/2 cup water for 15 mins. End of this, the dal should be really mushy.

In a non stick pan, add 1 tsp ghee, roast the rawa till it starts turning brown. Remove to a bow. Add 3 cups water to the same pan along with salt. Bring to boil. Simmer and slowly add the roasted rava and cook in simmer for 5 - 7 mins.

When the rava is cooked well, add the cooked moong dal, combine everything. Cook with a lid covered.

In another pan, heat ghee add crushed peppercorn, cashew, cumin and curry leaves. Pour this over the cooked pongal. Combine everything and serve with chutney.

The sweet prasadam for the day was made with broken wheat along with Jaggery and coconut milk. Since I was short of time, I used the coconut paste I had on hand. Else this can be made with extracted coconut milk.

Broken Wheat Payasam

Step by Step Picture Recipe for the Payasam

 

  

Ingredients Needed:

Broken Wheat - 3/4 cups
Jaggery - 3/4 cups
Ghee - 3 tsp
Coconut paste - 4 -5 tbsp / Milk from Half of a medium size coconut.
Cashew Nuts -  handful
Cardamom powder a pinch
Water - 2 -3 cups

Method

Wash and pressure cook the broken wheat for 3 -4 whistles. Allow the pressure to fall down.

Meanwhile melt the Jaggery and sieve it to remove impurities if any.

Once the pressure falls off, pour the Jaggery into the cooked wheat. Simmer and bring to boil.

Once it becomes thick, add the coconut paste. If you are using the extracted coconut milk, add the 2nd and 3rd milk. Bring to boil, finally add the 1st coconut milk that will be thick.

Heat a pan with ghee, roast the cashew nuts.

When the payasam is of the thick smooth consistency, add the roasted cashews along with ghee.

Remove from fire and serve hot.

Easy Sambar Sadam, Bansi Rava Sakkarai Pongal | Navaratri Recipes | Step by Step Recipe

Today's Navaratri Pooja's Special Dishes on Day 3 were - Simple Sambar Sadam & Bansi Rava Sakkarai Pongal.

For the third day of the Navaratri Pooja, the neivedyam was decided as Sakkarai Pongal and Sambar Sadam. Since today happens to be Friday, it was also told making Sakkarai Pongal is important. So I decided to make Sambar Sadam and Sakkarai Pongal using new recipes and ingredients

I went shopping yesterday and found Bansi Rava, Sambar Goduma Rava and Broken Wheat. I know the names are so confusing and I have myself used it interchanging. Will put up the pictures and find out about them. Meanwhile I took the rava that was called Bansi Rava and made Sakkara Pongal with it. Since I was looking at a simpler Sambar Sadam, this was the simplest one can get at. Sambar Sadam I made today can't exactly be called Bisi Bele Bath as it didn't have all the spices added to it, but can be called a version of it..:)

Konda's exams got over today and she has been so happy. For all the hue and cry she was making about not having holidays, we came to know that the school closes for a week and she has been so trilled over it. Well I can imagine how the next week is going to be.

Sambar Sadam / Sambar Rice | Easy Bisi Bele Bath

Rice - 1 cup

Toor Dal - 1/2 cup

Vegetables - Carrot, Beans, Drumstick - 2 cups

Tomatoes - 2 big

Sambar powder - 1 & 1/2 tsp (the powder is not very spicy)

Turmeric powder

Salt to taste

Tamarind pulp - 1 tsp

Hing/ Asafetida -  a ping

For Seasoning

Oil - 1 tsp

Ghee - 2 tsp

Onions - 1/2 medium

Garlic - 2 cloves

Mustard seeds, Urad dal, Jeera, Methi Mix - 1/4 tsp

Curry leaves few

Dry Red Chilies - 2

Cashew nuts

Spice Powder - 2 tsp (See the recipe below)

For Spice Powder:

Bengal Gram - 2 tsp

Coriander seeds - 1 tsp

Methi - few

Dry Red Chilies - 3

Copra - 1 tsp (opt)

Dry roast the above and grind to a semi smooth powder. This can be stored for couple of days and used in different recipes.

How to make the Sambar Sadam:

Wash and soak the rice for 15 - 20 mins.

Wash and pressure cook the toor dal with 1 & 1/2 cups along with few drops of oil, hing and turmeric for 3 -4 whistles till it is well cooked. Wait for the pressure to fall.

Then add the drained rice, 3 cups water. tamarind pulp, chopped tomatoes and pressure cook for 3 whistles.

Wash and chop the vegetables. Microwave for 10 mins or else cook separately.

Once the pressure is off, add the vegetables along with the water, spice powder. If required pressure cook for 1 whistle. Else add simmer for 5 mins.

Heat another pan with oil, ghee, add the seasoning ingredients, when mustard pops, add the onions, saute till brown.

Pour this tempering over the cooked rice and garnish with coriander leaves.

Bansi Rava Sakkarai Pongal | Chakkara Pongal with Bansi Rava

Step by Step Picture Recipe

Ingredients Needed:

Bansi Rava - 1/2 cup

Yellow moong dal - fistful

Bengal Gram 2 tsp

Jaggary - 3/4 cup (can decrease the amount if you feel it will be more sweet)

Ghee - 2 tsp

Cashew nuts and Raisins

How to make Bansi Rava Sakkarai Pongal:

Wash and soak the Rava along with Yellow Moong dal, Bengal Gram for 10 mins.

Then pressure cook with 1 cup water. Add more if you want it loose. Pressure cook for 2 -3 whistles.

In a pan, melt jaggary with little water, remove impurities if required. Pour this on the cooked rava and mix well.

Heat ghee and roast the nuts and add to the pongal.

The amount of water you add depends on the consistency of the cooked rava, if required add more so that it tends to be loose and easy to eat.

Bansi Rava Sakkarai Pongal was delicious. Amma told me that she liked it a lot and wanted to know how I made, well that surely made my day.

Hope you all had a wonderful day.

Ven Pongal Recipe | How to make Ven Pongal Step by Step Recipe

When it comes to a typical South Indian breakfast, Ven pongal or Pongali as we say in Telugu, features side by side to Idlis and Dosas. Now when I go to restaurants, it's a hard choice to select which one to eat, among the Pooris, Idlis, Dosas and of course this very tempting Khara Ven Pongal. So I normally order whichever one I would want to eat and hope others would order the rest so that I can taste! Athamma would invariably order this Ven pongal and I get to taste it and know that the dish tastes awesome. If you have had a prasadham from temple, you will know how well this dish is made. One can never beat the Kovil ven pongal prasadam.

With all the love and affection this dish gets at home, I have mostly followed by method of roasting the spices and then cooking it as I have shown in the first Ven pongal recipe. There are couple more methods of making a ven pongal. In my first method, I had arrived at my own recipe where I used garlic, which is not usually added. Still it always  makes it a heavenly meal.

Today's recipe is the second way of making Ven Pongal. Every time I make it, hubby dear says it's not spicy referring to the peppery taste that comes from a temple prasadam. Later I remembered our office cook who makes the most yummiest pongal, and she is your typical measurement by look and instinct person. It's extremely hard to get measurement from her as she hardly knows the count. She does everything from experience and only knows by andaz. She resorted to using this method of adding powdered pepper, saying everybody is removing the whole peppers she adds. Later while browsing through Meenashki Amma's Samathu Paaru, I read that she has listed out some four varieties of making Khara Pongal and found that she also uses similar way. I was happy that unknowingly I had been following a prescribed method.

Khara Pongal tastes great with the coarse peppercorn and ghee. Please don't go stingy on the ghee part, though I use half cooking oil also. As you might know, the Temple prasadam is always full of ghee and it's fine to include that once in a while.

Soaking Time : 10 - 15 mins
Preparation Time: 5 mins
Cooking Time - 10 mins
Method of cooking : Pressure Cooker
Cuisine : Tamil Nadu, South Indian Recipe

Khara Ven Pongal - Method 2

Ingredients Needed:

For the Pongal

Raw Rice - 1 cup
Split green gram / Moong dal / Pasiparupu* - 1/2 cup
Water - 3 & 1/2 cups**
Salt to taste


* We also refer split green gram as Split yellow Moong dal
** The amount of water depends on the rice you use, normally for Ven pongal more water is added since this dish is more of a runny types. Even after adding more water, once it's cooked if you allow it to rest, it gets to that nice soft texture.

For the Seasoning:

Ghee - 3 - 4 tsps
Cooking Oil - 2 - 3 tsps
Whole pepper corns, - 1/4 tsp (abt 10 nos), powdered coarsely
Cumin Seeds - 1 tsp
Whole cashews - 7 , broken into tiny bits
Curry leaves few
Ginger - 1" (can be added as grated or as big chunks)

How to make Kara Ven Pongal

To make the Pongal:

Wash the rice and soak for 10 mins. Meanwhile dry roast the moong dal for 5 mins on high, when you start getting the aroma, remove, allow it to cool and add to the rice to soak. Wash again once the time is up.

Take this soaked rice and dal in a pressure cooker, measure 3 & 1/2 cups of water, add salt. Cover with lid and pressure cook for 3 whistles. Remove and keep aside for the pressure to release.

Tip- When you are in a hurry, you can easily remove the pressure by putting a spoon under the whistle, thereby slowly releasing the pressure. Take caution not to remove the whistle in haste, wait for the pressure to completely fall down, before opening the lid. Remember the food will be still cooking in and will burst out if you do it hastily. Please don't attempt this method if you don't know the physics.

To make the seasoning:

Coarsely powder the peppercorn, make sure you don't powder it fine. We don't want it completely powdered, it should be like how it's in the picture, even more bigger if you can't stand the pepper spice.

Heat the ghee, oil in a small pan. add the cashew bits, allow it to get roasted well, then add the whole cumin, pepper, garlic, then finally the curry leaves. Take care since the curry leaves will have water and it might splutter out.

Pour this seasoning on the cooked pongal. Mix well couple of times. At this stage, the pongal might look soggy, but when you add the seasoning and mix couple of times, you will get that typical look of that soft, well done pongal.

Cover for couple of mins for the season to steep in.

Notes:  This can be completely made with just ghee, will be more tastier. By making cashews into tiny bits, you get to mix it more and adds crunch. Green chilies can also be used if wanted.

This is mostly served with Coconut Chutney in Tamil Nadu along with either Vegetable Samber or Vengaya Sambar. I mostly make Groundnut Chutney.

Since this is my neivedhyam on Saturday, we offer this to God and no tasting is done before that.

Other Pongal Recipes

Savory Pongals
Ven Pongal Recipe 1
Whole Green Moong Dal Rice Porridge | Pasipayar Ven Pongal | Pesalu Pulagam

Sweet Pongals
Bellamannam / Sakkarai Pongal
Broken Wheat Sweet Porridge | Samba Godhuma Sakkara Pongal
Sakara Pongal with Sprouted Whole Moong Dal

Broken Wheat Sweet Porridge | Samba Godhuma Sakkara Pongal | Ugadi 2011 Greetings!

Ugadi Greetings to all my dear readers and Friends.

Hope you had a great festival day today. With all of us not being in the best of our health, we just wanted to keep the pooja simple. Of course we can't let the day go off without us making the Poli, and Vankaya Urlagadda Kura,  Ugadi Pachadi,

We are slowly getting back to normal things. Never thought a simple cold and cough can be so terrible. The day is special in another way being I completed 6 years at my  current office. Our management has the wonderful gesture of sending flower bouquet and a signed card. Every year I get that, it makes me feel so good. More than my own reaction, I love the way my family reacts. 

Getting back to the sweets that one can make, this sweet pongal is made with Samba Godhuma. Turned out so well. 

 Broken Wheat

Broken Wheat Sweet Pongal

Ingredients Needed:

Broken Wheat - 1/4 cup
Jaggary - 1/4
Water - 1 cup
Milk - 2 tbsp

Dry ginger/ sonti (opt)
Fennal (opt)
Cardomon
Kopra,grated (opt)

Method to prepare:

Boil the broken wheat with water and milk until done.

Melt jaggary in another pan. Remove scum if any.

Once wheat is boiled, add the jaggary to the pan. Cook till everything gets well mixed. Finally add Sonti, Fennel and Cardamon.

Both Sonti and fennel are optional but adds great taste.

Enjoy the week ahead!

Ugadi Celebrations 2010
Ugadi Celebrations 2009

Sakara Pongal with Sprouted Whole Moong Dal

As with every festival, this Sankranti had me thinking what new dish I should make. Whatever new dish that may come to mind, I will have to make the star dish of the festival, that being the Sakara Pongal. And innovation had its play with Athamma telling me that we can prepare it with whole Moong dal instead of the split one and make it more healthy by using sprouted whole Moong dal. I normally prepare as how Amma makes, with Split Moong dal and handful of Channa dal. I especially like biting on that hard tidbits of channa dal in between.

Athamma had the sprouts done the previous night, they were just sprouting. So it was all convenient for us to make the Sakkara pongal. I found Athamma very nostalgic about her mom and was going on telling me on the different dishes her Mom used to make. Theirs being a big family, the entire cooking process starts well ahead in the morning. As a Bogi special, they used to make Sesame topped Jowar Breads, with Mixed Lentil Gravy. True to that Athamma made these two for our Bogi dinner. I could see that she was missing her mom and all those dishes that she no longer makes at home.

The other things we made were the Jowar Laddos with Jaggary. This was really something so new that I was really wonder struck. Did you know that Jowar also pops as the Corn? Atleast I didn't know and was so amazed that such wonderful preparation was also rustic in origin. Athamma said since Jowar was a staple grain at their place, this found its way in all forms. What I loved so much were the jowar pops as in pop corns! More on it when I post the recipe.

Next laddo that we made was the Bajra or Sadda ladoo. With the laddos that I ended up making, I can almost have a separate section dedicated to the lovely Indian Laddos on spot!

Then came the pineapple Halwa. I have been wanting to make Pineapple Rava Kesari, maybe next time.

Sprouted Whole Moong Dal Sakara Pongal

Ingredients Needed:

Rice - 1 cup
Jaggary - 1 cup
Sprouted Moong dal - 1/2 cup
Water - 3 cups
Cardamom a pinch
Ghee - 2 - 3 tsp
Roasted Cashew and Raisin for garnish.
Fresh grated Coconut - 2 -3 tsp (opt)

Method to prepare:

For making sprouts:

Follow the sprout process and store in fridge until you make this. Ideally its best to get it sprouted the day before as we want moong that just started sprouting.

For making the Pongal:

Wash the moong dal and keep aside.

Wash and soak the rice for 15 - 20 mins. Then pressure cook the rice along with the sprouted moong dal till it is soft.

In a separate pan, melt the jaggary and remove the scum if any. Then bring to boil, then simmer and allow it to cook for 5 - 7 mins till you get a thick syrup consistency.

Once the pressure off, remove lid, you will find the husk of the moong dal on the top. Remove them and mix well.

Pour the melted jaggary over the cooked rice and mix well. In a small pan, melt the ghee and roast the nuts and raisins till the raisins balloon up. Pour over the rice mix along with the ghee and mix well.

A healthy sakara pongal in offering!

Enjoy on any festival!


Do be sure to check out the Quick Paneer Parathas that I sent for lunch yesterday for Konda

And these tasty Onion Dosas my new post on BC!