Saturday 2 June 2007

Rava Pongal







I'm not a great cook, not even a moderate cook...'m just a beginner...Some recipes of mine turn out to be very delicious, while some turn out to be disasters. I generally look for a recipe over the net and make some changes to that, so as to minimise the work and sometimes I succeed, and today luckily my Rava pongal came out to be very good.
For a traditional Rava pongal, moong dal is boiled in a pressure cooker seperately, but that adds another vessel for me to clean....kikiki...I can be called as LAZY BONES when it comes to cooking. So I made a lil change to the recipe.
Ingredients:
Moong dal - 1/2 Cup (wash and soak in hot water for 20min) - I've done this becoz I didn't pressure cook the moong dal.
Semolina - 1 cup
Peppercorns (Miriyalu) - 1 tea spoon
Cumin seeds - 1/2 tea spoon
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tea spoon
Red chilli - 2 (tear into pieces)
Cashews - 10
Ghee - 1 small table spoon
Salt - as per taste
Water - 3 and half cups
Method:
In a pressure cooker take Ghee and heat it. Add mustard seeds, Cumin, Peppercorns, red chillie pieces. When the tadka is done add cashew nuts and roast for a while. Then drain the soaked moong dal and add it to the cooker. Roast it for 2-3 min and now add semolina and mix well and roast for 2min. Add 3 and half cups of water and salt. Mix well and close the lid. Pressure cook it for 3 whistles. Let it cool and mix well. Enjoy it hot by itself or with Coconut chutney or sambar.

Since I didn't pressure cook the moong dal seperately, dal was seperate and appeared to be more appealing, I didn't have curry leaves at home. Also I was reluctant to add ginger pieces. I think adding curry leaves and ginger pieces to the tadka would have been even better. I also feel like replacing the red chilli with a green chilli. 'll try it next time.




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