Khara pongal (Indian spiced lentils)
This is a classic celebration dish in south India. You can think of it as a south Indian khichdi (lentils and rice). Split yellow lentils are cooked with rice, cashews, chillies, cumin, mustard seeds, asafoetida, turmeric and coconut.
Ingredients
Serves: 6
- 4 tablespoons cooking oil
- 12 raw cashews
- 2 dried red chillies or crushed chillies to taste
- 1 teaspoon cumin seed
- 1 teaspoon mustard seed
- 10 black peppercorns
- 1 pinch asafoetida powder
- 190g split yellow lentils (moong dal)
- 185g rice
- 35g desiccated coconut
- 2 green chillies, chopped
- 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
- Salt to taste
- 840ml water
- 30g ghee (clarified butter)
- 4 tablespoons chopped coriander leaves
- 4 tablespoons desiccated coconut
Method
Prep:10min ›
Cook:40min ›
Ready in:50min
- Heat the oil in a pressure cooker. Fry the cashews in the hot oil until golden brown; remove from oil and set aside. Fry the red chillies, cumin seed, mustard seed, peppercorns and asafoetida in the hot oil for 2 minutes. Stir the lentils into the mixture and cook another 2 minutes. Add the rice, 35g coconut, green chillies, turmeric, salt and water; stir.
- Close the lid of the pressure cooker and bring to 15 pounds of pressure; cook about 35 minutes. Relieve the pressure from the cooker; stir the cashews and ghee into the mixture. Garnish with coriander and 4 tablespoons desiccated coconut to serve.
Difficult ingredients
Asafoetida powder and split yellow lentils (moong dal) can be found in most supermarkets and all Indian/South Asian stores. Split yellow lentils (moong dal) can be substituted for yellow split peas.
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Reviews & ratings
Average global rating:
(4)
Reviews in English (4)
Super fluffy and delicious - 23 Nov 2015
very good tasty recipe.I make this dish very often as a single meal dish served with roasted papad and curd. Chhaya[cstopre] - 30 Oct 2009 (Review from Allrecipes US | Canada)