The harvest festival Sankranti has rolled over and I am still in the hangover of that Big day feast. Reading the title of this post, you guessed so right? As I set out to make khara pongal, the little food blogger voice in me triggered to try some variation in the same. I had two options like replacing rice by some good cereal or modifying the authentic recipe adding some good stuff. The latter idea seemed quite obvious to me. Because I didn’t want to go beyond the usual tradition. So here comes the vegetable pongal recipe that has mild taste like it used to be but with vegetable crunch.
No doubt, the festival day feast has been elevated to next level with the inclusion of vegetable pongal to the menu. On top of that, it has turned in to power packed, wholesome meal now. This feel-good recipe is going to be part of my day-to-day cooking henceforth. I cannot afford to isolate such easy, healthy and awesome one pot meal to only festival season. What say??
Vegetable Pongal | Vegetabel Khara Pongal Recipe
Ingredients
- Raw rice- 1/2 cup
- Split green gram lentils- 1/4 cup
- Chopped carrot- Handful
- Chopped beans- Handful
- Fresh green peas- Handful
- Fresh grated coconut- 1/4 cup
- Cumin seeds- 1 tsp
- Black pepper- 1 tsp
- Salt- 1 tsp
Seasoning ingredients
- Ghee- 4 tsp
- Cumin seeds- 1/2 tsp
- Curry leaves- Few
- Cashews- Few
- Green chillies- 1 nos.
Instructions
Preparation
- Pressure cook rice as you normally do. The cooked rice should be soft and slightly mushy.
Method
- Heat a pan with ghee, cumin seeds followed by curry leaves. Saute a while, when the cumin sizzle include cashews and slit green chillies. Conitnue sauteing and then include split green gram lentils.
- When the lentils turn little aromatic, add chopped veggies followed by a cup of water and turmeric powder. Keep it covered and cook till the vegetables and lentils turn soft.
- Meanwhile coarsely grind cumin and black pepper in a mixer. You can even use mortar and pestle to crush them.
- Next add the cooked rice to the pan in which veggies are cooked. Add one more cup of water, crushed cumin plus pepper, grated coconut and salt. Combine everything well and cook everything comes together.
- Delicious vegetable pongal is ready to serve.
Notes
- The ratio of water is 4 times the total quantity of rice plus lentils. Meaning if rice and lentils together measure 1 cup then you have to add 4 cups of water.
- You can replace fresh grated coconut by desiccated coconut too.
- It is also a practice to add whole black peppers, but I don't like biting the pepper in between, so crushed them.
- For extra spiceness you can add chopped ginger too while seasoning.
