Sweet Pongal / Chakkarai Pongal

in Desserts, Sweets

 

This is a must to do recipe during Thai Pongal day. The amalgamation of jaggery with rice and dal along with ghee and other spices gives it a  heavenly in taste. However , Chakkarai Pongal is also made on other festive occasions . Rice being the staple food of South India, many rice based sweets are made aplenty in Southern India. Usually the local Ponni  raw rice  is used to make the Pongal.

Recipe taken from Cook and See Part – 1.

Ingredients

  • Rice 2 cups,
  • Green gram dal  ( paasi paruppu ) ¾ cup,
  • Milk upto 3 cups,
  • Water 3  cups,
  • Jaggery 3 cups (powdered),
  • Cashew nuts 20  grams, broken
  • Raisins 2 to 3 tablespoons,
  • Nutmeg ½ teaspoon grated,
  • Coconut 2 cups,
  • Cardamom ½ to ¾ teaspoon (powdered)
  • Pachai karpooram a pinch,
  • Ghee ½ cup or more.

Method

  1. Dry roast the green gram dal in a pan or griddle. Remove and keep aside, In the same pan, heat 4 teaspoon of ghee and shallow fry cashew nuts, raisins and coconut. Shallow fry nutmeg too and powder it.
  2. Pressure cook the rice and dal, in a mixture of  milk and water (together 6 cups) , to  a mushy mass, till 4 to 5 whistles. Cool.
  3.  In a kadai/ or a thick bottomed vessel, add the cooked rice and dal mixture ,add  jaggery  and  stir. Cook in low heat till the jaggery melts.
  4. Add 4 to 5 teaspoons of ghee, while jaggery melts, to prevent the pongal from sticking to the vessel.
  5. When it attains sticky consistency, add all the flavourings and garnishings one by one.
  6. Add shallow fried cashew nuts, raisins, coconut and nutmeg to the pongal.
  7. Sprinkle cardamom and pachai karpooram. Give everything a stir with a thick big ladle and add any left over ghee.

Note

  1. To keep the recipe low calorie you can omit the milk totally and cook the rice and dal in water.
  2. However if you want a rich taste, adding of milk helps.
  3. You can add a combination of jaggery and sugar or cook exclusively in jaggery or sugar alone. You can reduce the jaggery too, if you prefer a less sweeter version.
  4. Adding of ghee can be limited too, to make it appealing to the diet conscious.
  5. Coconut milk too can be added to get a rich yummy taste.
  6. If sugar is used , Instead of green gram dal one could use bengal gram dal ( kadala paruppu)
  7. Jaggery can be melted in a little water to make a solution and then added to the Pongal.
  8. This will prevent the impurities in jaggery from getting into the Pongal.