Venn Pongal

Its been a while since I cooked patiently, clicking away pictures and doing things at leisure. Just got back from a beautiful short vacation and still in the holiday mood. DH wanted to have vathakuzhambu. Luckily had butternut squash at home and made it in a jiffy. The best complement to vathakuzhambu couldn't be better than a plate of hot venn pongal. Realized quite late that I had not posted pongal on the blog and was just in time to click a couple of pictures for the same.

Ingredients:
(Serves 2)

Moong dal - Split - 3 tbsp
Rice - 1 cup
Black peppercorns - 1 tbsp
Crushed black pepper - 1/2 tsp
Grated ginger - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - A few
Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
Green chillies - A couple (optional)
Butter / Ghee - 1 tbsp
Salt - To taste

Method:

• In a pressure cooker or a pressure pan, heat the butter / ghee and once it gets hot add cumin seeds, black peppercorns, grated ginger , curry leaves, green chillies, and crushed black pepper. Then add the moong dal and rice and roast all the ingredients well on medium flame for 3-4 minutes.

• Then add water and salt and pressure cook for 3 whistles.

• Pongal would have cooked well  after 3 whistles. You can adjust the proportion of water depending on whether you prefer it to be semi-solid or solid.

• Serve it hot with coconut chutney , tomato gojju or vathakuzhambu..

• Enjoy the hot and tasty pongal.

Notes:

• Adding green chillies is optional. If you prefer spicy pongal you can add it or you can omit it.
• Addition of crushed red pepper gives it a real pepper taste. You can add it according to your preference.
• You can cube up ginger and add or you can julienne it. Grated ginger blends well with rice and will not be felt while eating.