Milagu Pongal / Ven Pongal

Ingredients:

Rice - 1 cup
Moon dal - 1/2 cup - Roasted
Black pepper - 1/2 tsp
Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp
Green chilli - 2 - cut into small pieces
Ginger - 1 inch - chopp them finely
salt - 1/2 tsp or as per need
Oil/ Ghee - 2 - 3 tsp
Curry leaves - few
Coriander leaves - few



Method:

1. Wash rice, moong dal, together and add 3 and 1/2 cups of water. Add salt and cook them in a pressure cooker. If you are not using pressure cooker, add 4 cups of water for cooking.
2. Rice should be well cooked. Say, it should be ready to get smashed.
3. Heat oil/ghee in a pan, add cumin seeds, pepper seeds, wait until it splutters. Then add green chilli, ginger, curry leaves, coriander leaves.
4. Add it to the cooked rice. Add more ghee for better taste. Add salt if needed and mix them well. Now rice will be smashed little bit.

Note:

Coconut chutney, idly sambar, puli kuzhambu suits this dish very much. And the best curry for this venpongal is mixed vegetable puli kootu. Usually we prepare this mixed vegetable puli kootu during pongal festival, which we celebrate in the month of January. In India its winter time and we use the vegetables we get during winter season.