Pongal Varieties

#Pongal : Pongal or #Venpongal is one of the most famous traditional breakfast foods of Tamil Nadu, a southern state of India. It is the most simplest and tastiest comfort food suitable for toddlers to toothless old people. It can be prepared very easily within short time. Pongal definitely finds a special place along with other breakfast foods in marriage feasts.

Pongal is prepared from rice, green gram lentil adding cumin & black pepper. It is a complete food since we get carbohydrates from rice, proteins from lentils and spices helps in digestion.

Usually very very hot pongal is topped liberally with ghee and served with coconut chutney & onion sambar. Every family has their own way of serving pongal. Some used to serve it with coconut chutney & papad [ appalam ]. Some used to relish pongal with sugar and some enjoy with curd. In our family we always used to prepare a special coconut chutney called pongal thuvaiyal [ pongal chutney ] with roasted mustard which is one of the greatest combinations for pongal. Another great combination for pongal is Vadava thuvaiyal [ vengaya vadagam thuvaiyal ] which is prepared from roasted dried onion and coconut.

Pongal can also be prepared using millet, broken wheat and rawa ( sooji ).

Here the picture grid gives the link to pongal recipes.
Hover cursor over the picture to know the name of the recipe.
Click once over the picture to take you to the post.

Pongal or Ven pongal	Broken ( dhalia ) wheat pongal	Kuthiraivaali pongal
Buckwheat pongal	Varagu or Varagarisi pongal	Varagarisi kothamalli pongal
Rawa ( sooji ) pongal	Samai or Samai arisi pongal	Thinai or Thinai arisi pongal
Quinoa pongal

Great accompaniment for pongal

Pongal thuvaiyal

Vadavath thuvaiyal

Chutney varieties

For other tiffin ( breakfast/dinner ) recipes

Tiffin ( Breakfast/Dinner )

For Millet recipes

Millet special

For Chutney varieties

Chutney recipes

Kanji-Dosai

#KanjiDosai : Kanji dosai has to be prepared just the same way as neer dosai but with a slight twist. Raw rice has to be soaked for two hours and has to be ground into a smooth batter adding coconut scrapings. Then transfer the batter into a vessel and wash the grinder with 1/2 cup of water. Take this water in a separate vessel. Add a tbsp of batter to this water and heat over a medium heat to prepare porridge. Allow it to cool down to room temperature. Then mix the prepared porridge with ground batter adding salt and a tsp of sugar [ optional ]. Allow the batter to ferment for 6 hours or overnight.
The batter is ready to make crispy dosai.

Ingredients :
2 cup	Raw rice
1/2 cup	Coconut scraping
2 Tsp	Salt
1 Tsp	Sugar [ optional ]

Oil to make dosai.

[ I used gingelly oil { til/sesame oil} which gives a nice aroma and taste to the dosai. ]

Method :
Wash rice thoroughly 2 to 3 times.
Then soak for 2 hours adding enough water.

After  2  hours grind soaked rice and coconut into a very very smooth batter.
Transfer into a vessel. Set aside.

Wash the grinder with 1/2 cup of water to take out the batter sticking to the surface of the grinder.

Transfer this washed water into a separate vessel and add 1 Tbsp of ground batter also.
Add some more water and mix well.

Now keep this vessel containing washed water on a stove over slow flame.

Keep stirring with a ladle.

Slowly it turns into porridge [ kanji ] and becomes shiny.

Switch off the stove.

Allow it to come to room temperature.

Pour into the vessel containing batter.
Mix this porridge [ kanji ] with the batter well.

Add salt, sugar and mix well.
The batter should be watery. Ferment for 6 hours.

Heat a tawa on a stove over medium flame.
Spread oil over the tawa.
When tawa becomes hot make dosai by pouring batter from rim of the tawa to its center.

Sprinkle oil over the dosai.
Allow it to cook until the rim becomes slightly golden color.
No need to flip the dosai and cook the top side.
Gently spread the oil using dosa ladle that we had sprinkled earlier over the top of the dosai.
Otherwise the dosai would become dry and develop cracks.

Transfer on to a serving plate.
In the same way make dosai one by one.

Serve hot with tomato sambar or tomato chutney or garlic chutney.

Note :
Kanji dosai can be made without fermentation also. But the taste & texture differs.

You might also like to try

Varagarisi Neer dosai

Thinai Neer dosai

Cholam dosai

Masaal dosai

Thinai maavu dosai