When I was planning my Pongal Feast for Foodbuzzs' 24 x 24 last week, I knew I couldn't have a true Pongal feast without... a Pongal. When I had a Pongal dinner last year, the dessert served was a soupy rice pudding made with a particular kind of rice served during Pongal celebrations, but since I was planning a Kerala vermicelli pudding for dessert, I needed my Pongal Rice to be my main dish. I settled on a savory blend of rice and dal studded with cashews, known as Ven Pongal.
This dish is a fabulous centerpiece and it goes from pantry to table in about an hour and a half. You gotta love that. With all the stuff that I was preparing for my dinner that night, which I would be doing single-handed and sister-in-lawless, I really needed something that would mind it's own business on the burner and be able to cook on its own. This is that dish.
Dal and Rice Pongal
In a heavy skillet or saucepan, dry roast 1 cup of rice for about 5 minutes. Set it aside
Dry roast 1/2 cup of moong dal for about 5 minutes. Set it aside.
Mix them together and put them in a pan or pot with:
4 and 1/2 cups of water
1/2 tsp of turmeric
Bring the whole thing to a boil. Let it boil for about 15 minutes.
Turn down the heat, put a cover on the pan and let it cook for another 40 minutes or so until the rice is soft. When it's done, don't drain it, just set it aside.
Meanwhile, make a spice powder. In a spice blender or food processor, grind up:
1 tsp of cumin seeds
1 tsp black peppercorns
Set the spice powder aside.
In a small heavy skillet melt 2 Tbs of unsalted butter. When the butter is hot and foamy toss in:
2 Tbs of cashews split in half
Saute them until they're lightly browned. Set them aside.
Once the rice and dal are done, heat 2 Tbs of unsalted butter in a small heavy pan and toss in:
The ground cumin and peppercorns
A 1 inch piece of grated fresh ginger
4 or 5 curry leaves
Saute them for about a minute, then add them to the rice and dal mixture, salt to taste, and finally sprinkle in 2 and 1/2 Tbs of grated or flaked unsweetened, dried coconut.
Scatter the toasted cashews over the whole thing, sprinkle the dish with chopped fresh cilantro and serve it up.
Add a couple of vegetable sides and a nice cooling raita and you're golden, just like this delicious rice and dal dish.
Okay, a serving note. When carrying heavy clay pots filled with tasty food around, watch out for lolling huskies, like this one.
Patsy has a bad habit of installing herself in the line of foot/food traffic. Here you can see her right behind my seat in the dining room. I always watch out when I'm carrying heavy or hot things around so that we don't have any accidents. I'm usually very careful. Except this evening. while carrying my laptop down the hall I wasn't paying attention. I thought I'd left Patsy back in our office, but she'd sneaked out and had decided to stretch herself across the hallway. I tripped over her and my laptop went up in the air. I caught it in what seemed like slow motion, and went sprawling down. Where did she go? She went running and I found her under our bed grinning up at me. I was relatively undamaged, my laptop in one piece. Another husky plot foiled, and I am here to tell the tale.
When I first saw the notice for The Foodbuzz 24 x 24 I was intrigued. Who wouldn't be? 24 people hosting 24 events all over the world on the same day. I immediately decided to enter. Then I thought wait a minute, if I enter and I'm picked, I really have to do this thing. I have do it and then post about it the next day. That's work. My life is about deadlines, script deadlines. Could I handle one more? Okay I thought. I'll send in an idea. I've always wanted to do an Indian Pongal feast with all the trimmings. I drew up a menu, imagined my perfect evening and sent it off.
A few hours later I started to get nervous. What had I gotten myself into? It's one thing to cook for oneself. It's a totally an other thing to cook for a deadline. I took a deep breath. Oh well, there's a lot of people entering. They won't pick me anyway. Well, they did. All of a sudden I was staring down the barrel of a full-on Indian Pongal Feast.
Who doesn't love Thanksgiving? Turkey with all the trimmings, stuffing and the bounty of the seasons, vegetables, mince pie, pumpkin pie, the groaning board and the groaning pants buttons when all is done. Well, even though Americans celebrate Thanksgiving on one day in November, it's actually always Thanksgiving somewhere. So just when you thought all your holiday eating was done, allow me to show you a totally different Thanksgiving experience. Pongal. In the Tamil language, the word ponggal means to "boil over" and milk boiling over in a pot is the symbol of a new year's prosperity as shown in the video below as women race to see whos' clay pot boils over first.
Thanks is given to the sun god and to the various farm animals that have contributed to a successful and plentiful year for a successful harvest. Of course as in any Thanksgiving or Harvest festival, one of the main attractions is the food and everyone is included, even the local elephants who have a feast of sugar cane.
This year I decided to have a Pongal Feast. I was a week late as Pongal was the weekend of the 15th, but when it comes to a blow-out party, better late than never I always say.
After seeing how elaborately they decorate for this holiday in Tamil Nadu, I figured that I'd better get my ass in gear decor-wise. This is not a couple of pumpkins in a basket and a folding cardboard turkey kind of feast. These guys are serious about how things look. Of course who better to be my in-house out-of-house decorator than Mr. X who has recently returned from his annual visit with friends in Trivandrum.
We have a very large dining room table made out of 100 year old, reclaimed barn wood. It's a little hard finding a proper table cloth for it let alone something fitting for a pongal revel. Of course he had the answer. 30 years ago he'd bought a hand printed bedspread, a Kalamkari print. It was gorgeous.
I immediately said "No! What if I spill something on it?"
He said "How do you know what happened on this bedspread? Okay I thought, now there's no way I'm using this thing. After reassuring me that the bedspread was pristine and table worthy, and after I promised to make sure there wouldn't be turmeric drippings all over it at the end of the feast, I accepted.
He also offered me a 200 year old Chinese made jar that he'd found in Kerala as my centerpiece. It was gorgeous. How could I say no, even after he told me it might be haunted.
I used my traditional dinner dinnerware as Mr. X seemed concerned when I talked about putting banana leaves down on his tablecloth. I dressed up the table with the flowers I could find, and found some cute stuffed elephants to frolic among the printed elephants on the cloth, some bright red-orange candles to light things up and swirly silver napkin rings completed the festive table.
Friends and neighbors who I know share our love for Indian food were invited to join us. Even Patsy had a guest, her "friend" Peaches the Dog.
Of course every dinner goes better with music.
To hear some of the sounds of my 24 x24 Pongal Feast listen to a bit of Tamil Music Talattu Pada
The only other thing left to figure out was the menu. Since this is a harvest feast celebrating the bounty of the land, the menu is vegetarian and as I discovered, also gluten-free, another plus.
I did a lot of research as to what dishes are traditionally served for Pongal feasts and of course that's like asking what Americans serve for Thanksgiving. It depends. It depends on family favorites, what crops are grown, what seems good at the time, and of course like here, what Amma (Mamma) used to make.
Where turkey is the mainstay of American-style Thanksgivings, the heart of the Pongal feast is rice. My Pongal feast was no exception. I love the individual clay brams I was able to find at Bram Cookware they made my holiday thali complete.
This is what I served: Spicy Tamarind Sambar Pineapple Rasam
Ven Pongal
Vegetable Stew with crunchy dal badis, (otherwise known as Ayvial)
Masala Vadai
Coconut Raita Apple Tomato chutney and for dessert Vermicelli Payasam with raisins and cashews.
My shopping trips in preparation involved visits to the only local Indian market in the county, a Thai market and my new discovery, a Cambodian Market on Petaluma Hill Road, which blew my mind.
All in all a 50 mile round trip. Who knew? Of course the vegetables came from Sonoma's Organic Friday Morning Farmers Market and (except for the long beans and the pineapple) everything was local. I started cooking the Wednesday before the dinner, roasting and grinding spices for my homemade sambar and rassam powders.
My biggest challenge, and the one dish I was dreading making, was the traditional Indian Vadai or little dal donuts. I'm not used to deep frying, but surprise of surprises, thanks to advice I got from various Indian internet friends, they turned out beautifully.
I made a list that I stuck to the fridge with a magnet to make sure I was on course. It gave me a feeling of accomplishment and it worked! For once I was able to greet my guests in a non-sweaty, relaxed manner, in a clean and sparkling blingy khameeze. Ready for fun.
And eating.
Drinking Covey Run Gewurztraminer Columbia Valley 2008 and an assortment of Indian beers
And finally Dessert.
Since sweet pongal rice pudding is often served with this meal, and since I was already doing a big rice dish as an entree, I looked for alternatives. I found it in a vermicelli pudding with roasted cashews and plump raisins, served with a hot milk chai it was simply divine.
We ended the evening romping with the dogs and lolling on the sofas in typical post Thanksgiving food comas (some things never change) while the rain pounded down on the roof.
Afterward I collapsed, contemplating the clean up of an army of clay pots which could not be run through the dishwasher.
We gave thanks for being safe and warm and well fed with the bounty of our local farmers. We'd had a double Thanksgiving and it was good.
I'll be posting the recipes for all of these wonderful vegetarian dishes in the days to come, as soon as I get done washing dishes.
I want to thank Foodbuzz for giving me the opportunity to share this meal with my friends and family and with all of you.
