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Karuppu Kavuni Pongal

Chettinad's best known dessert rice, karuppu kavuni has a flavor all its own that needs nothing else to taste delicious, but here its combined with all the pongal fixings for a fully Sankranti-ready offering to Surya himself. Any good black rice will do: karuppu kavuni (TN), Burma black (KA), Chak Hao Ambui (Manipur) or Kalabhat (WB) or Halishal (Odisha)
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Ingredients
  

  • 1 cup of Karuppu Kavuni, or other black rice
  • 1/3 cup of moong dal
  • 2 cups of jaggery
  • 1 cup of ghee, or as suits your taste
  • Flavoring: screw pine/ pandan leaves or bay leaves, cardamom or edible camphor. Can also use cloves, nutmeg and saffron.
  • Garnish: a mix of cashews, raisins, freshly grated coconut

Instructions
 

Preparation and Roasting:

  • Soak the rice for a few hours (for njavara) and up to overnight (for karuppu kavuni). Then wash it well and spread it on a cloth to dry. Odia meetha khichdi calls for the addition of turmeric prior to drying for 2-3 hours.
  • Follow by either dry-roasting the rice or using a little ghee. Roasting the rice enhances the grain flavor, though you can skip this step.
  • Roast the dal with or without a little ghee, until golden brown.

Cooking:

  • Cover the rice and dal with about 3 portions of water and slow cook until both are soft.
  • Much of the regional and local variation in making Pongal occurs here, in the use of just water to cook, a combination of milk and water, or just milk. The taste and texture of the resulting Pongal varies, as a result.
  • Flavoring leaves such as Indian Bay [Tamalapatra] or Screw Pine/Pandan used in the cooking water are other variations from eastern India.
  • Prepare the Jaggery paakam or syrup:
  • Powder or crush the jaggery and heat with a little water in a heavy saucepan to dissolve and boil to 1-string consistency
  • Add this to the cooked rice-dal mixture
  • Pour on most of the ghee, reserving a few spoonfuls to roast cashews and raisins. Mix well.

Flavoring and finishing:

  • Add crushed cardamom or a small amount of edible camphor.
  • In the remaining ghee, lightly fry the cashews and then the raisins until they plump. Pour this along with the ghee onto the hot pongal.
  • Add the freshly grated coconut last, as a final garnish.

Notes

Other Aromatic rices to select: Gandakasala/Gandesale, Mulan kayama, Gobindo bhog, Sitabhoga or Pimpudibasa, Joha (Assam) are common and easy choices as their natural fragrance adds much to the final dish. Not all of these rices will require pre-soaking, however. A medicinal rice like njavara can also be used, and would need soaking for just a few hours.