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.

Idly Sambar

Ingredients:

Toor dal - 2 hands full or 1/4 cup
Brinjal - 2 nos
Potato - 1 nos
Carrot - 1 nos
Beans - 10 nos
Cabbage - 1/4 part or 2 hands full
Onion - 1 - chopped
Tomato - 2 - chopped
Green chilli - 4 nos
Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp(boil) + 1/2 tsp(seasoning)
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Chilli powder - 1/4 tsp or as per need
Sambar powder - 3/4 tsp or as per need
Mustard seeds - 1/4 tsp
Hing - A pinch
Red chilli - 2 nos
Salt - 1/2 tsp or as per need
Oil - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - few
Coriander leaves - a hand ful

Method:

1. Cut all the vegetables of any size, add them with toor dal.
2. Along with that add onion, tomato, green chilli, turmeric powder, cumin seeds and add 2 cups or more water and boil them in a pressure cooker.
3. Let it for 6 whistle or one more, so that all vegetables, dal are cooked well.
4. Let it cool, until the pressure gets down. Then drain water and smash them all together.
5. Heat oil in a pan, splutter mustard seeds, cumin seeds and add red chilli and then add the drained water and the smashed mixture.
6. Add chilli powder, sambar powder(USE MTR), hing, and salt and let it boil for another 5 mins. Add curry leaves and coriander leaves.

Note:

You can smell nice aroma now and feel like having it immediately. Do not add more toor dal. You can choose vegetable of your choice, but don't choose vegetables that have more water content. In south india, this type of sambar is very special in all restaurants and in wedding parties. This matches idly, dosai, uthappam, uppma, and milagu pongal.