Pongal ain’t over people! We still got a day right? Let us try something different on this day. So, won’t it be really good to have everything in chocolate? Yes right! So, here is a very special recipe to end this year’s pongal celebrations – chocolate pongal!
Yeah yeah, I know some of you might be thinking why I am uploading a pongal recipe after everything is over. So, the answer to this is already in the first line of this post! In Tamilnadu, we celebrate pongal festival for three to four days, starting with Bhogi, and then pongal, then Mattu pongal and finally Kaanum pongal.
I hope the first three days went great for you all. Generally, the fourth day of the pongal festival is when everyone enjoys. People come together and just enjoy the day by going out and doing so many things. For me, this day was my ’back to school day’, not much of a celebration but yet, why should we limit ourselves when food is there to celebrate every day.
So, I thought of preparing something different for this pongal. Last week, while I was seeing one cookery show in the television, (though I did not mention the name, I know you all would have guessed it by now and most of you will be a fan of this show particularly) I came across the recipe for this chocolate pongal. The show was in tamil and it is more of a fun show than cooking.
Anyways, though they did not mention the exact ingredients or the method for the recipe, I figured it out by the name the contestants mentioned. And on top of all that, any pongal requires few basic ingredients ad that we all know. So, figuring out the rest was also not so tough.
I finally did come up with the ingredients and a recipe plan for chocolate pongal here. This chocolate pongal is so very delicious and I have made it using kodo millet, which is very healthy! You will notice that the kodo millet that I have used is brown in color and not white. That is because, I have used the unpolished form. However, polished kodo millet is white in color.
I prefer using unpolished millet mainly because it is very healthy and is also very high in fiber. You can try replacing it with raw rice, as we do it usually for all the pongal recipes. I do not know how it will turn out to be, because I don’t know how well chocolate goes with rice. I still have a doubt about that. But feel free to try and do let me know too!
Apart from the millet, the rest of the ingredients are the same as for the original sweet pongal recipe! To get the flavor of chocolate, we add cocoa powder to the pongal. This chocolate pongal will mainly be loved by all kids (including me, I guess!). My husband and I loved it a lot.
The only problem is that, since we are using millets here, this chocolate pongal seems to be a little heavy on your tummies. I mean the taste is finger-licking good, no doubt about that. You will just want to eat more, but your tummy will not co-operate, Lol! So, if you are a die hard chocolate fan, then save some extra space for this chocolate pongal.
So, try this chocolate pongal for this festive season and enjoy with your family! May you harvest all the happiness and prosperity! Have a very happy pongal! And a very big, Pongal-o-Pongal!!! Stay safe; stay healthy! Happy cooking and eating!
While you are here, do checkout my sweet pongal recipe to prepare along with this chocolate pongal! Also, do checkout my ezhukari pongal kootu recipe that is normally prepared during this festival! Oh, and yeah, do try out all my other Indian sweet recipes too!
Has meal planning been a little bit difficult during this lockdown? Look through my No Veggies, 21-Day Lockdown Series for ideas on what to cook during this lockdown.
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Chocolate Pongal
Ingredients
- 1 cup kodo millet
- ¼ cup moong dal
- 1⅓+½ cups milk
- 1½ cups water
- ¼ cup ghee
- ¼ cup cocoa powder
- 1 cup brown sugar
- ¼ tsp cardamom powder
- a pinch of salt
- few cashews
- few raisins
Instructions
- To a pressure cooker, add 1 tsp ghee and roast the moong dal for a minute.
- To this add the washed and drained kodo millet and mix well.
- Add 1½ cups milk and 1½ cups water to the pressure cooker and mix well.
- Add cardamom powder along with a pinch of salt and mix. Close the lid and cook for 3-4 whistles on low heat or until the millet and the dal is cooked well.
- Transfer the cooked millet and dal to a pan and add the rest of the milk, brown sugar and cocoa powder. Mash slightly.
- Add ghee, a tbsp at a time to the pan and mix well.
- In a tadka pan, add the rest of the ghee and let it heat. Fry the cashews in hot ghee until golden brown in color. Transfer it to a plate. Turn off the flame.
- In the hot ghee, add the raisins and fry until it turns plump.
- Add the fried cashews and raisins along with the ghee to the pongal and mix well.
- Serve pongal hot or warm.
Notes
- Wash the moong dal and drain off the water before roasting it in ghee.
- Wash and drain the kodo millet in the same way before adding it to the pressure cooker.
- Cook the pongal in a pressure pan which is large enough to accommodate the contents. If not, then the liquid might ooze out.
- Instead of cardamom powder, you can add whole green cardamom too.
- Instead of brown sugar, you can add white sugar or jaggery or any other sweetener of your choice. I thought brown sugar goes really well with chocolate and added that.
- You can replace kodo millet with raw rice and try chocolate pongal in that way too.
- Do not add lots of cocoa powder as it leaves a bitter taste to the dish if added in larger quantity.
- Adjust the quantity of sugar as per your taste.
- The pongal should not be too thick. It should be in a ‘fall off the spoon’ consistency. So, add milk as necessary to get the right consistency and mash well.
- The heat after taking the ghee off the stove is enough to fry the raisins.
- Chocolate pongal will thicken in time. So, take it off the heat just before the right consistency is achieved.
