Sweet Pongal(Brown Rice & Mung Bean Pudding)

Happy Pongal/Shankranti to all of you. Pongal/Shankranti is a harvest festival celebrated throughout
India and in each state it is called in different names and is basically a festival to celebrate the elements
of nature which help in farming. This is one of the traditional sweet made with Rice & Mung Bean and
Jaggery(Panela). I wanted to make it little healthy so substituted brown rice with white rice and
increased the quantity of mung bean, it did taste awesome. Brown rice is a very good source of complex
carbohydrates, mung bean is a good source of protein and jaggery is unrefined sugar and is a very good
source of iron. A perfect nutritious sweet.
Ingredients
Brown Rice – 1 cup
Split Mung Bean – 3/4 cup
Milk – 2 cups
Water – 2 cups
Jaggery – 1 1/2 cups (or increase it according to your taste)
Saffron – pinch
Ghee(clarified butter) – 2 tbsp
Chopped nuts – 1 tbsp
Cardamom powder – 1/4 tsp
Method
1) Soak brown rice overnight.
2) Dry roast split mung bean for few minutes till you get a slight aroma and don’t over roast it.
3) Combine the brown rice, mung bean, saffron, water and milk and cook in a pressure cooker
for 3 whistles and simmer for 5 minutes and switch off.
4) Take out the cooked brown rice and mung bean and using a potato masher, mash well so that
the grains of the brown rice are well mashed and become soft.
5) Add the powdered jaggery to this mashed mixture and cook till the jaggery is dissolved
and the mixture thickens.
6) Heat ghee, add the cardamom powder and chopped nuts once they are golden brown
garnish the pongal and serve.
Notes – You can increase the ghee according to your preference, and of course the
more the ghee the better it will taste.

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