Dairy free Sakkarai/Sweet Pongal

      

Sakkarai or sweet pongal is my all time favourite sweet dish. I have always believed that the milk and loads of ghee that goes into the pongal makes it such a divine dish, until I made a dairy free version of it for Pongal/Sankranthi festival. It was tastier and healthier than the ghee loaded version. I have been using a traditional pongal recipe from my grandmother which I made vegan. I was not sure about substituting ghee. (I used to add almost 1/4 cup of ghee for pongal.) Checked out Vaishali's blog and was suprised to see that she overall used just a tsp of oil, that too to fry the dry fruits. I used a tsp of vanaspati for the same.

Talking about Pongal festival, it is basically a harvest festival when we(especially the farmers) thank the sun god for giving a good harvest and to give many more prosperous years. It is a grand affair in villages. For city dwellers, it is basically making pongal and vada, buying sugar cane and turmeric and doing some puja at home.
The pongal recipe here does not use pressure cooker to cook the rice. Instead, rice and moong dal are cooked in a vessel(directly kept under the stove) by adding water and milk. Once it is cooked thoroughly, jaggery is added. Finally it is garnished with cashew and raisins and flavoured with cardomom powder.
Here is the recipe..

Ingredients for pongal to serve 8 adults for dessert
Raw rice: 1 cup(not basmati or atleast I have not tried with Basmati)
Yellow moong dal: 1/4 cup
Water: 2 cups or more
Almond milk: 2 cups(I used homemade, recipe below)
Jaggery: 2 1/2 cups
Vanaspathi/Vegetable Oil: 1 tsp(I used sunflower brand vanaspathi)
Cashew and raisins: 1 or 2 tsps of each
Cardomom powder: 1/ tsp

Procedure
1. Dry roast moong dal for 1 or 2 minutes and keep aside.
2. Wash rice and drain water(it is OK if some water remains)
3. Add rice and dal in a thick bottomed vessel(it is preferred to use thick bottomed narrow mouthed vessel. I used "vengala paanai", which translates to bronze pot)
4. Add 2 cups of water to the rice and keep the vessel in the stove and set the flame to medium.
5. While rice is getting cooked, stir occasionally so that it does not get stuck at the bottom.
6. Once the water is evaporated and the rice comes to semi solid consistency, add 2 cups of almond milk and allow to boil. 
7. Check if rice is cooked after around 15 to 20 minutes. If it is still not cooked and water content is less, add some more water, not more than 1/4 cup at a time.
8. Once rice is completely cooked(it would take around 30 minutes), add jaggery and stir well. 
9. When jaggery is melted, it again comes to a watery consistency.
10. Set the flame to low and allow it to boil for sometime.
11. After around 5 to 10 minutes, pongal would come to a semi solid consistency.
12. Put off the stove at this point.
13. For garnishing, heat vanaspati/oil in a pan. Add raisins. Once it becomes fluffy, add it to pongal. In the remaining vanaspati, add cashew. Once it turns golden brown, transfer it and the left over vanaspati to pongal.
14. Add cardomom powder to pongal and mix well.
15. Serve it warm.

Note
Jaggery should be added only after the rice is cooked completely. When a small quantity of rice is put in a bowl and pressed with the fingers, it should get mashed easily.
When the rice is completely cooked, it should be of semi solid consistency and not watery. Adding jaggery would make the rice a bit watery again. So before adding the jaggery if the rice is watery, heating for more time might not bring it to the right consistency. So, care should be taken not to add excess water when the rice is getting cooked. 

Recipe for almond milk
I first made almond milk at home for this Bread pudding recipe.
1. Soak half cup of almonds in 2 cups of water and keep in the fridge overnight.
2. The next day grind the almond in a mixer by adding 1/2 cup water(which was used for soaking) until it is smooth.
3. Add the rest of the water and grind just for few seconds.
4. Strain the blended almond and almond milk is ready.
For pongal, I soaked almonds for just 3 hours. I also did not strain the blended milk.

Do have a look at Vaishali's blog for pressure cooker version of dairy free pongal which is much easier to make than this tradional method.

Suyan for Saraswathi puja

Suyan is one of my favourite sweets though this is the first time I made them at home. I got the recipe from my mother. There are a couple of things to be taken care of while preparing the batter to get good suyans. The batter should be very smooth and the consistency should be such that one should be able to immerse the stuffing(purnam) in the batter and put them immediately in oil for frying. It should be neither too thin nor too thick. Here is the recipe to make around 15 medium sized suyans.

Ingredients for the batter
Urad Dal(full): 1/4 cup
Raw rice: 1/3 cup
Salt to taste

Ingredients for the stuffing
Shredded Coconut: 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp
Jaggery: 1/2 cup(broken into small pieces)

Refined oil for deep frying

Procedure to make the batter
1. Wash both rice and dal and soak them together for atleast 1/2 an hour.
2. Grind the soaked rice and dal into a very smooth batter by adding very little water. (Check while grinding if water is not sufficient. Only then add water.)
3. Transfer the batter to a bowl, add salt and mix well. Kepp aside.

Procedure to make the stuffing
1. While the dal and rice are soaking, the stuffing can be prepared.
2. Mix coconut and jaggery in a kadai/pan.
3. keep the stove in medium flame and stir until the mixture comes together and the most of the water evaporates. Keep aside.

Procedure to make the suyan
1. Divide the stuffing into 15 parts/balls..
2. Heat oil in a kadai/pan
2. Dip each ball in the batter so that it gets coated on all sides with the batter.
4. Put it immediately in the oil. Do the same for some more balls.(as much as the pan can hold)
5. Fry till the suyan turns golden brown on both the sides.
6. Remove from the pan, drain excess oil and place it in dry bowl.
7. Repeat the same for the rest of the stuffing and batter.

Janmashtami and Ganesh Chaturthi special post and Creamy semiya(vermicelli) payasam/kheer recipe

I know this post featuring Janmashtami and Ganesh Chaturthi is a bit too late..But "Better late than never." :-)Lord Krishna and Lord Ganesha's b'days are celebrated as Janmashtami and chaturthi respectively by the Hindus. As with any other festival, one of the main attractions is the preparation of array of sweets and snacks which is offered as Neivedyam to the gods.

Janmashtami fell on a weekday and I was off to work. My MIL and visiting mother prepared the snacks..As they folowed the good old ladle and eye measurement, I do not have the cup measurements for the snacks that they prepared. So just sharing the photos and customs that we follow in celebrating the festival..

Janmashtami aka krishna jayanthi is generally celebrated in the evening as Lord Krishna is believed to be born in the midnight. We do the following things for the puja.

1. Put a kolam/rangoli at the entrance of the house. We make a paste out of rice flour and use it to put the kolam. Draw feet of kutty(small) krishna from the entrance till the puja room as if he is visiting our house.
2. In the puja room, decorate the idol or photo of Lord Krishna with garland and flowers.
3. Arrange the items prepared for Neivedyam in front of the idol. The items that are generally kept as Neivedyam are..
    Uppu Cheedai
    Vella Cheedai
    Murukku or thenkuzhal
    Appam
    Ulundu Vadai
    A small bowl of milk with a tbsp of butter put in it.
    Vella Aval or Aval payasam
These are supposedly kutty krishna's favourites. :-)
Along with these, we also keep the usual beetel leaves, paaku(forgot the English word), fruits and coconut. Light vilakku(diyas) in front of the idol.
Chant some slokas of Lord Vishnu and then finally do the aarthi.(deepa-aaradhanai)
Then ofcourse start eating the prasadams. :-)

Ganesh Chaturthi on the other hand was on a weekend. So I had all the time and energy for preparing the dishes. Ganesh chaturthi is one of the festivals that I lused to look forward to when I was a kid. On the day of the festival me and my father would go to the market in the morning to buy the Ganesha idol made freshly out of clay. Choosing the idol without any defect was a real fun. I mainly used to see if the small munjur(rat) at the bottom is in good shape and if one tusk in the idol is smaller than the other. Then we buy the flowers and other puja items and head back to home. I just used to enjoy this trip. Here are the thing that we do for the puja.

1. Buy the Ganesha Idol. There are some special flowers that we need to buy like erukampoo(a type of fower) and arugampul(a type of grass)
2. Put kolam at the entrance of the home and in the puja room using rice flour mixture. We call this maakolam.
3. Decorate the idol with flowers and also drape a blouse bit(vastram)
4. Arrange the neivedyam items in fron of the idol.
The items that are generally kept as Neivedyam are..
    Uppu Kozhakkatai(modakam)
    kadala paruppu kozhakkatai
    Vella poornam kozhalkkatai
    Payasam
    Ulundu Vadai
Kozhakkatais are Lord Ganesha's favourite.
Along with these, we also keep the usual beetel leaves, paaku(forgot the English word), bananas and coconut. Light vilakku(diyas) in front of the idol.
Chant some slokas of Lord Vishnu and then finally do the aarthi. This step is common for most of the puja.

I actually wanted to share the recipe for all the items. But as I missed the paper in which I noted down the measurements, just giving the recipe for semiya payasam. I got the recipe for the payasam from my cousin in Bombay. I have made semiya payasam so many times, but I have never ever got such a creamy and rich payasam before. Special thanks to her for sharing this recipe.

Ingredients to serve 4 adults

Semiya/Vermicelli: 1/2 cup
Milk: 2 cups
Condensed milk: 1/2 tin(200 gms)
Ghee: 1 tbsp
Cashew and raisins to garnish
Cardomom powder/Elaichi: 1/6 tsp

Procedure

1. Add ghee in a kdai/pan. Add the cashew and raisins. Once the cashew turns slightly brown and the raisins puuf up, simmer and remove them from the pan.
2. Add the semiya(if not already roasted) in the same pan and roast for a few minutes until it turns slightly brown.(around 3 minutes)
3. Boil the milk.
4. Pour the milk in the semiya pan and cook the semiya in low to medium flame stirring occasionally.
5. The semiya would absorb the milk and get cooked.(around 10 to 15 minutes)
6. Check if the semiya is cooked by pressing a few of them with the finger. If it gets mashed easily then it is cooked. While cooking if it becomes too thick add some more milk.
7. Once the semiya is cooked add the condensed milk and mix well. (Since it is made as Neivedyam, we can't taste now. Otherwise taste the payasam. If more sweet is required, add some more condensed milk.)
8. Garnish with cashew and raisins.
9. Serve hot or cold. While serving if it is too thick, add some more milk.

Semiya payasam cannot get richer and creamier than this.

And finally this is my entry to Purva's Festive Food event. She was kind enough to let me send in the entry one day late. Thanks Purva for that. I just loved this event and did not want to miss it.

Panakam(spicy jaggery water)

We make panakam on Ram Navami day. Lord Rama's b'day is celebrated as Ram Navami during the month of April(panguni in Tamil) on punar poosam nakshatra on the ninth day after amavasya(ammavasai). In South, panakam, neer more and cucumber salad with moong dal(kosmalli) are prepared and offered to god as neivedyam.

The dry ginger powder added to it gives it a nice spicy touch. Its also very easy to make.

I just love this drink.My mother made this on Ram Navami day this friday which I am documenting here.

Ingredients

Jaggery: 200gms
Water: 600 litres
Dry ginger powder(chukku podi in Tamil): 1 tbsp
Elaichi: 10 (crushed)
Juice of half lemon

Procedure

1. Mix all the above ingredients in a bowl. Stir for sometime so that the jaggery dissolves in water.
2. Serve once the jaggery completely dissolves.

It can be refrigerated and had cold.

Raw Mango pachadi(Raw mango in jaggery)

This is one of the items prepared during special occasions like marriage or any other traditional function and during some festivals like Tamil New Year.

This being a traditional dish, it goes without saying that my mother prepares the pachadi superbly well in an authentic way that has the right amount of sourness from the raw mango and sweetness from the jaggery.

I just can't stop myself from documenting this recipe as this is my husband's favourite dish and he does not need an occasion to have this. So, my mother prepared the pachadi today.

Ingredients

Raw mango: 1 mango or 300 gms(cut into big flat pieces as shown in the picture. Peeling the skin is optional. My mother does not peel the skin)
Jaggery(vellam in Tamil): 300 gms(break jaggery into small pieces.
Green chily: 2 long
Turmeric: a pinch
Red chily: 1 long
Ghee: 1 tsp
Mustard: for seasoning
Salt to taste

Procedure

1. Pressure cook mango by adding some water(till the mango pieces are immersed half) and turmeric.
2. In a pan/kadai, add ghee. Once it is hot, add mustard. When the mustard splutters add red chily.
3. Add jaggery and little water(around 3 to 4 tbsp).
4. Keep in low flame.
5. Stir until the jaggery dissolves.(around 5 to 10 minutes).
6. Add the cooked mango and salt. Boil for around 10 minutes or until the consistency becomes somewhat thick. Remove from heat.

Mouthwatering mango pachadi is ready.

Note: We add Neem flower(veppampoo in Tamil) to this pachadi to get a little bitter taste when we prepare it for the Tamil New Year. This pachadi which has sweet, bitter and sour tastes depicts life that also has bitter and sweet moments.