Our favourite part of the South Indian harvest festival pongal is the delicious rice and lentil pudding / porridge that never fail to tantalize your taste buds, no matter how many times you eat it. Take a look at these 5 pongal recipes– ranging from very traditional sweet and savoury pongals to transformed version of this classic – all equally good and easy to prepare.
Classic Sakkarai Pongal
Roasted green gram and rice are the main ingredients in this traditional pongal recipe. Boiled in milk, sweetened with jaggery and topped with grated coconut and nuts sautéed in ghee, with the lingering hint of cardamom and nutmeg in each bite – there is not really much reasoning to why as to why this recipe has been such a constant!
Ragi Pongal
Swapping rice for ragi in a pongal recipe gives you sakkharai pongal in a brand new avatar. It is nuttier, more rustic and definitely much healthier plus the rich dark brown chocolaty colour is to die for or rather worth living for. The use of jaggery and just about a tablespoon of ghee add to the health dynamic of this sticky sweet pudding recipe with a nutty crunch.
Twist to tradition
This is the best recipe you can prepare if you want to celebrate pongal and Sankranti together. A circular disk of rose petal brittle or chikki sitting on top of saffron infused sweet pongal just fancies things up. Not just the taste but even the look of this recipe is a refreshing change from a regular pongal.
Simple savoury venn pongal
Moongdal and rice pressure cooked till porridge like in consistency flavoured with the most basic mix of roasted, crushed peppercorns and cumin topped with pure ghee and dried fruits. It is the simple seasoning that really brings out the fabulousness of all the ingredients – a mélange of taste, texture and aroma –builds and appetite for even the poorest of poor eaters.
Spicy bajra pongal
This one is a truly loaded pongal. Made with bajra and cooked in a pressure cooker much like how you would cook a pulao, it has a bunch of flavours from the spices and a quintessential unmatched taste and aroma that you can get only by using pure ghee. Bajra in itself is really nutritious, but feel free to add in some finely chopped veggies for colour and more nutrition! Browse through SanjeevKapoor.com for more harvest festival recipes from all parts of our beautiful country! As of now happy pongal!
Chef Sanjeev Kapoor is the most celebrated face of Indian cuisine. He is Chef extraordinaire, runs a successful TV Channel FoodFood, hosted Khana Khazana cookery show on television for more than 17 years, author of 150+ best selling cookbooks, restaurateur and winner of several culinary awards. He is living his dream of making Indian cuisine the number one in the world and empowering women through power of cooking to become self sufficient. His recipe portal www.sanjeevkapoor.com is a complete cookery manual with a compendium of more than 10,000 tried & tested recipes, videos, articles, tips & trivia and a wealth of information on the art and craft of cooking in both English and Hindi.
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