PONGAL
This blog is not about the festival; it is about the dish.
Pongal is a breakfast dish very popular in Tamil Nadu. It is made of rice and lentil and spiced with pepper and jeera. The garnishing of cashews in liberal quantities of ghee makes the breakfast wholesome and very tasty. The taste is generally enhanced multifold with the two most common accompaniments - coconut chutney and eggplant-onion 'gotsu' (stew). The ingredients done, now let me say why I like this item.
Pongal is the only breakfast item I prefer when I am on vacation in Tamil Nadu and have to eat in restaurants. Cooks in Tamil Nadu are the only ones who know how to cook this dish well. The pongal available in Karnataka (especially Bangalore) are runny and accompanied by onion raita. Now that is one side dish that should absolutely be kept away from pongal. I think pongal in Karnataka cries when it sees the raita, that is why it turns runny!
My wife makes a decent pongal, but of late she has been rather stingy when it comes to adding ghee and cashew. That doesn't bode well for the pongal and in my honest opinion, that is why it isn't as tasty. I am sure the pongal gods are unhappy as well. Maybe after reading this blog of mine, she will go back to her original ratio of ingredients.
Wedding events in Tamil Nadu generally have a breakfast menu which includes pongal. But the gotsu is absent; instead we are served sambar with pongal. Now that isn't such a great thing as gotsu and one helping of pongal is enough for me. Very few restaurants in Tamil Nadu also serve gotsu; sambar is the preferred option since it reduces the variety of items prepared! But inspite of such shortcomings, it is anyday more welcome than idli, dosai, or vadai!
I have heard my ex-colleagues from Bangalore who have echoed similar sentiments regarding pongal and the variety that is prepared in Tamil Nadu. So there....you guys in Bangalore need to stop calling your dish pongal. Instead call it khichdi, which it really is!
My appeal to the government of India. Please make pongal the national breakfast of India. After the national bird, national animal, and national flower, let us have pongal as the national breakfast!
The dish of the gods, by the gods, for the people of India!
Honestly if Pongal is complemented with Crispy Medhu Vadai , heavenly combination and I love ❤️ it anytime. BTW Raj do let me know which hotel serves Gotsu with Pongal, I will make a note of it for my next visit
ReplyDeleteI agree on the onion raita comment. National breakfast is a stretch. Idli is better liked throughout india compared to pongal. Pongal is maybe a weekend breakfast. You can eat a serving of pongal and work after.
ReplyDeleteOne of the key ingredients that most recipes for pongal will recommend is milagu (black pepper). I cannot even today fathom the sensibilities of a world in which this miniature exploding cannonball came to be involved in the world of authentic regional cuisine. It is and will remain inexplicable as long as many fail to see the injustice of the cook's insistence in keeping the pepper in its ball form rather than powdering it to save the poor eater's teeth, palate and temper!
ReplyDeleteWow! You can write a separate blog about the whole black pepper as it finds its way into your mouth!
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