Ven Pongal | Khara Pongal | How to make Ghee Ven Pongal ?

Ven Pongal, a comfort food !

Ven Pongal (also called as Khara Pongal) is a traditional South Indian breakfast dish.  Rice and Dals are cooked together and further seasoned by ghee, pepper, cumin and curry leaves.  I love to do Ven Pongal as it is very easy and quick.  The flavour of ghee with pepper is the unique taste of Pongal. The shine and smell of ghee in pongal will tempt everyone to have more. It’s a comfort food and goes very well with Coconut chutney / Chidambaram Brinjal Gothsu / Sambar.  In the restaurants, the hot ghee pongal, medhu vada combo is very popular

Ven Pongal is an offering to God in many temples

It is the traditional neivedhyam (offering to God) in most of the temple in Tamil Nadu.  Usually Rice (annam) is used to make prasadams. In Ven Pongal, both Rice and Dal are the key ingredients hence Pongal has been considered as a common neivedhayam in most of the temple. The pongal served in temple have unique taste. I have published a recipe for the temple style pongal here.

Video Recipe for Ven Pongal / Khara Pongal

How to cook Ven Pongal / Khara Pongal ?

(For the detailed step by step instructions along with pictures and more details, please scroll down further to Steps section below)

1. First of all heat a heavy bottomed pan, add moong dal and roast the moong dal in the dry pan till it turns golden brown color
2. Add the fried moong dal with the raw rice for rinsing
3. Cook the raw rice along with the moongdhal and salt in the pressure cooker by adding 1/2 up extra water than normal rice cooking and for 2 extra wistles in the cooker than normal. This will make the rice mushy.
4. Heat the pan, add 1 teaspoon on ghee and add the broken cashews and fry till they turn golden brown color. Take this out and keep it aside in a plate.
5. In the pan, pour the remaining ghee and add the cumin seeds. Once the cumin seeds begins to sputter add the whole black pepper, slit green chilli, asafoetida, curry leaves and pepper powder. Fry for few seconds.
6. Add the tempering to the cooked rice and dal and add the fried cashews. Add the grated ginger. Mix the rice evenly to spread the pepper and salt and switch off the flame.
7. Now the Ven pongal is ready to serve hot

 Notes :

1. Serve Pongal hot
2. Before serving, you may want to add little boiling water in the pongal and mix it well. Then add little ghe on top of it and serve hot.  This will give a freshness to pongal and flavor of ghee.
3. You can also add the ginger while cooking the pongal. But adding the grated ginger in the last step (in the cooked pongal) will give fresh flavor of ginger.

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