Sunday, February 2, 2014
Chakkarai pongal or Sarkkarai pongal sweet Rice
This Rice is the queen of pongal.The idea of making this pongal on the first day of Thai month, was to make a sweet first out of the newly harvested rice. Now time has changed. Agriculture is no more the main occupation of many. But we continue to celebrate the function with some raw rice we get in the store.To our future generations we should try to explain the importance of this function to the farmer and the agriculturists
In those days pongal was kept outside the house in the open for sun God. Now in our system of living we can’t do that and we have ended up in making pongal in the pressure cooker in our kitchen. Till today, I have managed to make pongal on the pongal day in the pongal panai in the dining room keeping the gas stove down .But in this method there is a risk of pongal getting burnt if we are not careful. So I advice the younger generation to make it in the cooker itself which is a safe and sure method
Ingredients
Raw rice-1 cup
Grated jaggerry-1 cup
Broken green gram-handful (pasiparuppu)
Ghee 3 table spoons
Cashews-10
Raisins-handful
Powdered cardamom-1 teaspoon
Procedure
Wash the rice and pasiparuppu and cook in the pressure cooker with 3 cups of water in medium fire for 10 minutes. Meantime dissolve the jaggerry in a cup of water in the stove. Strain it using a stainless steel strainer .Keep it back in the stove and bring the mixture to a boil for 2 minutes. After the pressure goes open the cooker. Smash the rice nicely with a flat ladle. Slowly pour the jaggerry water into the cooker mixing well .Switch on the stove now and in low fire mix everything nicely. Switch off the stove in 2 minutes. Remember the pongal will solidify once it cools. If you want you can add little milk also instead of water while cooking rice.
In a small frying pan, in a tablespoon of ghee fry the cashews after breaking it into small pieces in low fire. Add this also into the cooker. Fry the raisins also and along with that ghee add everything into the pongal. Add the cardamom powder and a tablespoon of ghee and mix well. Your pongal is ready .While serving you can use the remaining 1 tablespoon of ghee
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