While ven pongal is made often as breakfast in our home, Sweet pongal is usually made on Pongal or any other festivals or as an offering/prasadham at temples. The tradition in our family for the day of Pongal is to set up a temporary stove with rocks and dried wood in front of the Ganesh temple at the street corner and cook Pongal in a bronze pot that exists solely for this purpose. It is mostly a team effort. The adults do the hard work like building the stove, making sure that the fire burns throughout and cooking the actual pongal. And the kids get the fun parts like breaking the jaggery and cashew nuts into pieces. It all takes a good hour or two. Finally, a pooja is done at the temple and you are free to eat the sweet pongal. The tradition in my in-law’s place is a bit more than that. Three stove are set up in the backyard and three different types of pongal are made.
We do take, “love thy neighbour” and “sharing is caring” pretty seriously. We share the sweet pongal we made in our homes with others and vice versa. And when you live in an apartment and are friends with nearly ten other families, that is a whole other level and a whole lot of sweet pongal for one day! Maybe that is why people don’t make it for the rest of the year! Haha! I assure you, it is good to have some sweet pongal on any day. Not only on the day of Pongal. My recipe here might be a bit different in the sense that I do not use cardamom, raisins, dried ginger, edible camphor or grated coconut to enhance the flavour of the pongal as is done normally. I use saffron instead. This sweet pongal is simple and mild, and not overly sweet.
Ingredients:
- 110 grams Rice/Raw rice
- 110 grams Moong dal/Split and skinned green gram
- 4 cups Water*
- 100 grams + 2 tablespoons Ghee/Clarified butter
- 130 grams Jaggery*, broken into small pieces
- 1 pinch Salt, optional
- 1 pinch Saffron*
- 1/4 cup Cashew nuts
Preparation:
Take rice and dal in a bowl. Wash them in water. In a heavy-bottomed pan boil water and add in the rice and dal. Cook till it turns nice and soft. Stir in-between to avoid sticking to the bottom.
Once it is done add, ghee and jaggery. Stir and cook till all the jaggery had dissolved and is mixed through the pongal.
In a small pan, het 2 tablespoons of ghee and fry the cashew nuts till golden. Add it to the pongal, along with saffron and salt. Mix them through.
Serve hot.
Notes:
- The required amount of water may vary depending variety of dal and rice. If more water is required, boil it before adding.
- The amount of jaggery mentioned above is just right for my taste buds which mostly others will feel to be less. Do add more to suit your needs.
- You can use 2 or 3 pods of cardamom instead of saffron. I do not prefer them mostly in any sweet dishes I make. So I have switched it with saffron which gives a mild flavour to the pongal.
- Also, you can fry and raisins along with cashew nuts if you prefer.
