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.

Posted in: brown rice, brown rice pudding, brownrice, dessert, how to make sweet pongal, makarsankranti/pongal, yellow mung bean