Sweet Pongal

Sweet Pongal/ Sarkarai Pongal is a traditional recipe made for Pongal Festival in Tamil Nadu. Not only for Pongal festival, this sweet Pongal is the main offering to the god in most of the occasions. Sarkarai Pongal is a sentiment to them.

We generally made this sweet Pongal with raw rice and moong dal. But we make this sweet pongal with lot more grains with simple changes accordingly. This broken wheat pongal is one of the must try versions.

Sweet Pongal

We prepare pongal in open pot as well as in pressure cooker. While make in open pot it takes time according to the cooking time of the grain we use. Also, the quantity of water is more when compared to pressing cooking.

In open pot cooking, we add hot water if necessary throughout the process. In pressure cooking, at the beginning we add required quantity of water to cook the ingredients. Later we adjust consistency with hot water.

Ingredients

Broken Wheat - Broken wheat is the main ingredient for this pongal. We replace it with millets like little millet, kodo millet, foxtail millet, barnyard millet, proso millet or with raw rice or with sooji.

Moong Dal - Moong dal will give a nice taste to the pongal. I generally use yellow moong. But its ok to use split green moong dal also.

Channa Dal - Channa dal is used to give a soft bite in the pongal.

Jaggery - Jaggery is the only sweetener of the pongal. We may use sugar, palm jaggery, palm sugar etc.

Ghee - Adding generous amount of ghee is important for a rank 1 pongal. But you may increase or decrease.

Cashew Nuts - Cashew nuts, broken and roasted in ghee is the iconic element of the sweet pongal. We may add roasted grated badam or seeds of our choice.

Raisins - Raisins roasted in ghee is also an iconic soft sweet bite of the pongal. But it is optional.

Cardamon Powder - A pinch of cardamon powder enhance the flavor of the pongal.

How to make Broken Wheat Sweet Pongal in Pressure Cooker?

In a pan take moong dal and roast till golden. Wash channa dal and roasted moong dal.

Add dals and broken wheat in a bowl. Add salt and water. Pressure cook for 3 whistles. Let the pressure release by itself.

Heat ghee in a pan and roast broken cashew nuts to golden. Put the flame to low.

Then add cooked dals, broken wheat, jaggery and a pinch of salt into the pan. Let the jaggery melts and combine. If the consistency is too tight then add required quantity of hot water not too much. Let this boil and combine well. Do this whole process in low flame.

Add cardamom powder and mix. Add more ghee if you wish. Consistency of a sweet pongal is the same as that of halwa. Take out of flame after jaggery and dal-broken wheat mix are both combined well. Now our sweet pongal is ready to taste.

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