Muunru Raja Pongal

Rice Cooked With Sugar And Coconut Milk 

Serves 8 to 10 

Ingredients 

4 tbsp ghee

100 gm cashew nuts

100 gm raisins

2 coconuts, to extract 2 cups of thick coconut milk and 12 cups of second and third coconut milk

1 tsp salt

1 kg raw rice, new harvest

3 cups sugar

15 cardamoms, crushed

Method 

In a pan, heat the ghee, add the cashew nuts and fry till light golden brown.

Remove and add raisins. Fry till light golden brown. Set aside.

In a big pan, add the second and third coconut milk extract and salt. Cover the pan and bring to a boil.

Add the rice and cook on low heat till the rice is done and is of a sticky consistency. Switch the flame off.

Add the sugar, thick coconut milk, crushed cardamoms, fried cashew nuts and raisins. Stir.

This pongal is served piping hot with ghee, vadavam coconut chutney, country bean sweet potato porial and potato prawn and mustard cooked in coconut milk (kadugu erral).

This pongal doesn’t keep.

PONGAL

Pongal is a four-day festival generally held in mid-January. It marks the end of winter and the beginning of the harvest season. It is, therefore, a festival of both renewal and prosperity. It is also a thanksgiving ceremony to nature, to Mother Earth who has been so bountiful in bestowing her gift of plentiful harvests, to the rain god and Surya, the sun god, who so generously created the climatic conditions necessary for cultivating the land well.

It is the preparation of pongal as a dish that matters the most during this festival. Pongal is usually made with the first paddy that is harvested. The muunru raja (three kings) pongal is a typical preparation of Pondicherry and Karaikal. Rich and creamy, it is cooked once a year on Epiphany day. It is cooked at noon when the church bells start chiming. Usually cow’s milk is used, but in Pondicherry and Karaikal, coconut milk is used.

The pongal is distributed to neighbours and relatives. It is placed along with a piece of sugar cane, porials, vadavam chutney, tambulam, beetle leaves, bananas and a string of jasmine, all placed on a banana leaf.