Ven Pongal/Seasoned Rice and Mung dal mash

I love Tamilian food. I love it, so much so,  it made my family believe, I will come home with a Tamilian groom some day. The feeling of bringing home a T groom was so strong, when I left home for studies to TN. Contrary to my family's belief, I brought home Anglo Groom.  It was a real surprise for my family and quite a bit of relief knowing that I am still in their circle of dining, eating beef, duck and pork. As it turned out my groom is a big meat eater, everyone lavishly poured their love in the form of non veg feasts, and the result - he craved for something vegetarian.

What about Pongal?

We decided to walk the wedding aisle after bonding over some hot teas, pongals, and uzhunnu vadas. Pongal being favorite of Loyd and uzhunnu vada being mine. Pretty much like everyone job and moving on to greener pastures played a havoc on our tastebuds. Food memories which we carried to the aisle didn't stay with us and it was almost wiped out from our memory.

Bringing home a newborn can work wonders. Truly it is magical!

When you are wholeheartedly embracing junk, you are also scouring through hundreds of healthy toddler recipes, and thinking about 101 ways to feed it to your baby.

Rice, dal with ghee being one of the first solid foods for babies and the easiness with which it can be converted to Pongal with a tadka of pepper, cumin, and curry leaves made Pongal, a regular in our house.

Pongal is nothing but a beautiful mess of rice and mung dal with a peppery cuminy undertone. Khichri in South Indian form.  Hah! How Abbey loves it and calls it Pongal balls – She almost made it look like cocktail balls.

Anyone out there looking for Ayurvedic  experience in eating? Cook this beautiful mess, you won’t be tired of it with dollops of ghee (Aw! Not for weightwatchers).  Highly prescribed by Ayurveda and most famous among Ayurvedic retreat centres, it has gained popularity already. 

Ingredients

Basmati Rice - 1 cup

Mung dal - 1/2 cup

Peppercorns - 1/2 tsp

Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp

Curry leaves - 1 stalk

Cashewnuts - 1 tbsp

Ghee  - 1/4 cup

Method

Pressure cook rice and moong dal in 3 1/2 cups of water. Once it is done, release the pressure and open the pressure cooker. Mash the rice and dal to your liking (you can leave the rice and dal as it is, if you are not looking for a mashed dal and rice mixture).

Heat ghee in a pan, add cashewnuts. Fry it. Remove it from the pan. Keep it aside.

Now to the remaining ghee, add peppercorns, cumin seeds, and curry leaves. Add this to the mashed rice dal mixture. 

Add cashewnuts as well. Mix well. 

Ideally served with sambar, chutney, gotsu.