Sakarai Pongal(Rice Pudding)

Sakarai Pongal is an easy to make dessert. We make this dish for many festivals. My mom makes the best Sakarai Pongal. This  is the main dish made for Pongal festival. When I was a teenager, my mom used to be busy doing pooja, while my sister and I helped the cook prepare the dishes. Since Pongal is celebrated to thank the Sun God, people usually cook pongal outdoors or in back yard. Since we lived in the city, we did not cook outdoors. Instead we used to cook it in the kitchen and take the pongal in a decorated cooper pot upstairs to the roof, where my mom had everything set up for the pooja. We had to wait under the hot sun at noon for my mom to finish her pooja before we could eat our lunch. Of course, we had to bring everything back downstairs.

Ingredients:
3/4 C rice
1/4 C mung dal
1 t channa dal
1 1/2 C jaggery(Indian brown sugar)
1 T broken cashew nuts, roasted in ghee
1/4 t cardamom powder
2 C milk
2 C water
3 T ghee

Method:
1. Mix water and milk to the rice and dal. Cook in the pressure cooker for 25 minutes or for 7 whistles.
2. Heat a broad pan to medium heat. Melt the jaggery in less than 1/4 cup of water. Add the cooked rice and stir well. Cook for 10 minutes. Add ghee in between.
3. Remove from heat. Mix in the cashew nuts, raisins,and cardamom. Drizzle with ghee before serving.

Note:
The pongal I made today was very light due to the color of the jaggery. So, I added a little saffron to the pongal.
Depending on the variety of rice, water/milk could be adjusted to  3 1/2 to 4 cups