Pongal

Pongal is a harvest festival - the Tamil equivalent of Thanks giving. In an agriculture based civilization the harvest plays an important part. The farmer cultivating his land depends on cattle, timely rain and the Sun. Once a year, he expresses his gratitude to these during the harvest festival. With the end of the wet Tamil month of Margazhi (mid December to mid January) the new Tamil month of Thai heralds a series of festivals. The first day of this month is a festival day known as "Pongal Day". Pongal means in Tamil the root "pong" or in Telugu "pongu" means to " boil over" or "spill over".
Pongal is a popular rice dish in South India. There are two varieties of Pongal, Sweet Pongal which is a sweet, and Venn Pongal, made from clarified butter. The unqualified word Pongal usually refers to Spicy Pongal, and is a common breakfast food in South India. The rice boiled with milk and jaggery during the Pongal festival is called Chakkara Pongal - this is Sweet Pongal made especially in earthenware pots with a wood fire.
Ingredients
» 1 cup Rice
» 1/4 cup Moong dal
»1 /2- 1 tsp Jeera
» 1/2-1 tsp peppercorns
» 1/2 tsp pepper powdered fresh
» A few Cashew nuts broken
» 1/2 cup desiccated Coconut
» A pinch of Turmeric powder
» Ghee

 Method
1. Fry the Moong dal a little till you get a light flavour.
2. Mix the dal with the rice, add 2 -3 cups of water
3. Add turmeric powder, coconut, a few peppercorns and a 1-2 tsp of ghee
4. When done, take a kadai add sufficient of Ghee to it, more the ghee better it tastes, add jeera, pepper corns and cashew nuts.
5. Add the cooked rice mixture, add pepper powder, salt and mix well with the ghee and jeera/cashew nuts.