A big thanks to all my blogger friends who unfailingly leave their comments, though I am unable to visit any of your blogs these days. I will be back blog hopping only after the second week of February. 🙂
Pongal is the harvest festival. Farmers celebrate the festival to thank nature for the rich harvest. The festival is celebrated on the first day of Thai month (Thai Maasa pirappu). Pongal as a festival is celebrated widely with Tamils irrespective of religion. People gather in big grounds. They build large stoves with bricks and use fire wood to light the flame. Pongal is prepared in large decorated earthen pots. At home we prepare pongal in Vengalapanai (bronze pot)
Decorating the panai
A turmeric pod, a small banana and a small piece of sugarcane are tied to the neck of the pot. Shaivaites and Vaishnavaites decorate the pot with Thiruneer( Vibhudi) and Thiruman, Shree Swarnam respectively.
The next day banana and sugarcane are offered to the cow along with some sarkkarai pongal. The turmeric pod is used by the ladies to make a paste for applying on their face.
Ingredients
- Rice – 1 and 1/2 cup
- Moong dal – 1/2 cup
- Milk – 1 and 1/2 litre
- Jaggery – 3 cups
- Cardamom – 6nos
- Saffron leaves – a few
- Ghee – 4 tablespoons
- Cashew – 2 table spoons
- Dry grapes – 2 table spoons
Method
- Wash the rice and moong dal, drain well and keep aside.
- Boil milk in the decorated vengalapanai. When the milk boils and reaches the rim of the panai and slightly over flows, add the washed rice.
- Allow to cook over medium to low flame till the rice is soft. This takes around an hour. Add hot water or milk if required.
- Add grated jaggery, mix well and cook for another 15 minutes.
- Add powdered cardamom. Mix the saffron leaves in warm milk and add to the pongal.
- Garnish with cashews and dry grapes fried in ghee.
My previous post with the Vengala Panai has attracted a lot of queries on why there’s a banana, why is a sugarcane piece tied, where the turmeric is and so on. I’ll write a separate post on about why banana, sugarcane, turmeric and so on are used during festivals.
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Me first!! YAY!!!
So good to read about traditional celebration. Good one Latha.
I have a award for you and L, go get it at FH. See you later ie in Feb. Take care, hugs to you!:))
I know if i come here i can read about all the traditions and festivals.
Reading thru your post I felt as though I was home. Very nice info and picture.
I got the feeling of home and hopped in to see if it was you! Yeah! Gotcha 🙂
Hope you had a wonderful Pongal, Latha! Nice post explaining Pongal traditions! Keep them coming!
Glad to see your post Latha.Looking forward to see the detailed post.Warm regards.
Dear Lathamma,
Its been a while that I saw ur post.. and I know i have been busy.. This post gives such nice homely feel. Thanks for sharing with all of us..:))
Hugs,
~ Siri
I love making the pongal for Sankranti, though this year we are not celebrating. I usually add a bit of Mace ( the outside part of jakai) to the Pongal which gives a unique fragrance and flavour.
A nice pic lathama we too do it in vengala panai with fresh turmeric tied on the panai and the pongal done with firewoods do visit my blog for the pics of my this year pongal celebration in a very traditional way
Latha:
Loved your bronze pot with the banana and else tied around it! Beautiful!
and thanks for the pongal recipe.
Once our house remodelling is completed (hopefully in 4 weeks) our lives will get back to normal and we can try all these recipes!
hope you are all well.
Mami you are simply cool I made pongal in vengalai pannai as per your instructions it simply tasted superb kindly putsome more authentic iyengar recipes you rock..sathya
You have left thengai mooodi which also should be part of the decoration