NAVARATHI 1ST DAY

1. Ven Pongal
 INGREDIENTS
Rice - 450 gm
Yellow lentils (Moong daal) - 225 gm
Cashew nuts - ½ cup
Pepper - ½ tsp
Ginger - 1" piece
Ghee - ½ cup
Cumin seeds - ½ tsp
Salt - to taste
Curry Leaves - a few
 METHOD:
➊ Heat ghee, fry cashew nuts till golden brown and reserve.
➋ Fry whole pepper and cumin seeds.
➌ Add lentils and curry leaves, fry and remove.
➍ Boil 1 liter water and add washed rice and fried lentils.
➎ When half cooked add salt and chopped ginger.
➏ When done, add cashew nuts and remaining ghee.
➐ Serve with coconut chutney

2. Parrupu Vadai

Paruppu Vadai, a traditional neivedhyam (Offering to God) recipe that we usually prepare for
any auspicious occasions or festivals. We add three types of dals – Channadal, Urad dal and
Toor dal to make this recipe, hence it’s also called as Mixed Dal Vada or Mupparuppu Vadai.
If we prepare Paruppu Vadai for the offering to God, then we don’t add Ginger, Garlic or any
Masala items.

How to make easy Paruppu Vadai ?

(for the detailed step by step recipe instruction along with pictures, please scroll down further
to Steps section below.)

1. Soak all the Dals along with Rice for 3 hours. After 3 hours, filter the water and keep
the dal mixture aside for about one hour to drain the moisture.
2. After an hour, Grind half quantity of dal with green chili, ginger, salt and hing without
adding water till the ginger, green chilies are ground smoothly. Take this aside.
3. Add remaining dals and give few pulses. We don’t want the dals to get grind smoothly.
Add curry leaves and coriander leaves and mix well
4. Heat oil in a pan. Make small patties of vadai and drop it in oil and deep fry it. Once
the vadai becomes brownish color, take them out and serve hot.

Notes :

1. For Neyvedhyam (God offering), we don’t add the Onion / Garlic / Masala. If you are
making this for evening snack, then you can add these to make more flavorful and
tasteful.
2. Grind the Dals little coarsely to get more crunchy vadas (Visited 12,845 times, 3 visits
today)
 Steps
SOAK THE DAL IN WATER



Mix all the dals and raw rice and soak the dals in water for 3 hours. After 3 hours filter the
water and keep the dal for 1 more hour to remove moisture.

GRIND THE DALS - STEP 1



After an hour, Grind half quantity of dals with green chilli, ginger, salt and hing without adding
water till the ginger, green chillies are ground smooth. Take this aside.

GRIND THE DALS - STEP 2



Add the remaining half of dal to the mixer and just give a couple of pulse. Add this ground
coarse dal with the smooth ground dal and mix well. Also add curry leaves and chopped
coriander leaves and mix well
FRY THE VADAS

3.

Heat the oil in a kadai and once the oil is hot, take small quantity of ground dhal and and
press it in the center and gently drop it in the oil and deep fry it. Once the Vadai becomes
brownish color take it out in a bowl with a paper towel to dry the oil and serve hot. Repeat
the step for the remaining vada batter
 NAVARATHI 2nd DAY
Puli
2. Chana sundal recipe
 Ingredients
o Channa/ Kondakadalai - 1/2 cup
o Coconut, scraped - 3 tblsp
o Salt - 3/4 tsp

 To Temper
o Oil - 1 tsp
o Mustard - 3/4 tsp
o Urad dal - 1 tsp
o Red chilli - 2
o Asafoetida - 1 pinch
o Curry leaves - 1 sprig

Method

1. Soak channa overnight and pressure cook it with salt and water just to immerse it for
4 – 5 whistles.

2. Heat kadai with oil and temper with the items given under ‘To temper’ table. Add the
cooked channa drained from water.

3. Stir fry for 2 minutes until moisture evaporates and add the grated coconut and fry for
a minute. Transfer to the serving bowl.

Notes

 You can add onion after tempering. Also you can replace red chillies with green
chillies.
 You can grind green chilli and coconut and add it at last instead of tempering and
adding grated coconut towards end.
 I added salt while cooking. This prevents over cooking of chana. Sometimes if the
soaking hour is less, then adding salt will prevent channa from cooking properly. In such
cases, add salt after cooking chana.
 NAVARATHI 3rd DAY
1. Iyengar Sakkarai Pongal - Sweet Pongal recipe

INGREDIENTS

1 cup - 250ml

• Raw rice - 1/2 cup ( Good quality Sona Masoori rice)

• Yellow moong dal - 2 tbsp
• Boiled milk - 1 cup
• Water - 1.5 cups
• Powdered Jaggery - 1 cup ( Use 3/4 cup if using paagu vellam)
• Water- 1/2 cup ( to melt jaggery)
• Ghee - 2 to 3 tbsp ( I used 2 tbsp butter to roast nuts)
• Cashew nuts - Few
• Cardamom powder - 1/2 tsp
• Edible camphor / Pachai karpooram - A pinch

METHOD

1. In a pressure cooker base, heat 1 tsp ghee. Roast moong dal for a minute.
2. Add raw rice to it and roast for another minute. Wash them.
3. Add water + milk to the cooker along with a pinch of salt.
4. Pressure cook in very low flame for 2 whistles.
5. Mash the cooked rice & dal. Boil and melt jaggery adding water and strain the syrup.
6. Add jaggery syrup, 1 tbsp ghee to the mashed rice. Mix well and boil till semi solid in
consistency. Switch off flame.
7. Add cardamom powder, a pinch of edible camphor and cashews roasted in ghee.
8. Mix well and remove from flame. Garnish with more cashews if you like and serve hot
!
METHOD - STEP BY STEP PICTURES
 In a pressure cooker base, heat 1 tsp of ghee. Roast yellow moong dal for a minute. To this, add rice and roast
for one more minute. Remove the cooker and wash the rice + dal. Drain the water and keep it back in flame.

 Add milk + water to the washed rice, dal mixture. Add a pinch of salt as well. Mix well.
  Pressure cook in very low flame for 2 [Link] the cooker after steam is released. Mash the rice and dal
very well with a ladle or masher. Make sure rice + dal is mashed properly. Add more boiled milk or water if needed. Mix
well. Keep the cooker aside.

 In a kadai, boil and melt jaggery adding water. Strain the syrup in a wire mesh. (If the jaggery tastes too sweet,
you can reduce to 3/4 cup)

 Add the syrup to the mashed rice and mix well. Add little more hot water or milk if the pongal is too thick at
this stage. Add 1 tbsp ghee to avoid sticking of rice to the bottom of cooker.

 Mix well and boil till pongal comes to semi solid in consistency. Do not cook till too thick. It will harden as it
cools down. So make it semi thick. Remove from the flame.
 Roast cashews in the remaining 1 tbsp ghee and add to pongal. ( I used fresh butter, melted to make ghee and
roasted the cashews as suggested by my friend.) Add cardamom powder, a pinch of edible camphor and mix well. Add
1 tbsp more ghee and few more roasted cashews for garnishing. Serve hot !

Note
• The ratio of rice & water depends on the quality of rice. Old rice takes more water. For pongal festival, we buy new rice (
pudhu arisi).So it takes less water. I used 1:5 ratio of rice and water. You can also use 1:4 or 1:6 based on the rice.
• Similarly the quantity of jaggery depends on the type of jaggery. If you use paagu vellam, you can add 1:1.5 ratio of rice
& jaggery else use 1:2 as I did to get nice color and taste.
• If you feel the sweetness is more, you can add more boiled milk or hot water to reduce the sweetness.
• Edible camphor is the most important to get temple flavor.
• You can also add powdered nutmeg and roasted cloves if you like.
• Do not reduce ghee than the mentioned quantity. You must add more ghee to get ghee dripping pongal else pongal looks
dry.