CHAKRAPONGALI

Chakrapongali is a traditional Andhra sweet dish with full of richness. Made with rice,moong dal, whole milk and lots and lots of ghee, the preparation tastes the ultimate and irresistible. Apart from pulihora, this chakrapongali is also made as a naivedyam (offering) to God. This is must sweet in every family on the Sankranti festival. Everyone gets confused with cakrapongali, pongali and milk pongali(palapongali). Pongali is a simple rice kheer made with rice and bengal gram dal and no much of ghee and milk is used. Ghee is used only to roast the dryfruits. The milk pongali is completely cooked with milk and has a liquid consistency. In both the recipes not much of ghee is used and chana dal is used. On the other hand the chakrapongali has lots of ghee and moongdal is used instead of chana dal. As of now I am posting chakrapongali, but very soon I will post the other two also.
INGREDIENTS

• Rice                1 cup
• water              2cups
• moong dal       1/4 cup( can be more as per ur taste)
• milk                 1 cup
• sugar               1/4 cup
• jaggery            1 cup (grated)
• elachi powder 1 Tsp
• dry fruits         1/4 cup (cashew, badam, raisins, dry coconut)
• ghee                1/2 cup

PROCEDURE
In a pan add a teaspoon of ghee and roast the dal till the raw smell is removed. Don’t let the dal burn.Use a low flame. Wash the rice and cook along with moong dal in the pressure cooker with 1+1/2cups of water and 1+1/2 cups of milk untill very soft. In a pan add 1 Tsp of ghee and roast the chopped dry fruits and the coconut pieces into golden brown. Remove them and keep aside. In a large thick bottomed pan (or a non stick pan) add the jaggery and sugar and little amount of water and keep stirring with the flame on low. When the jaggery and sugar melts sieve the liquid so that all the dirt (if any) from jaggery is removed. Again keep the syrup on fire and make the syrup to a thick consistency. Now add the rice to the syrup and keep stirring. When all the moisture is removed add ghee to the rice , a Tablespoon at a time. Keep on stirring continuously on a low flame till ghee oozes from the chakrapongali. Now add the elachi powder and the ghee roasted nuts and serve hot.
TIPS

• Do not try to cook the rice with only milk. Rice will not cook with milk alone. Use milk and water, both.
• Add a couple of table spoons of ghee to the syrup and then add the cooked rice so that less amount of ghee is enough to make the chakrapongali.
• This recipe consumes lot of ghee so if you want a low calorie version try the following

Cook the rice with water alone. In a pan add the cooked rice and milk and set on fire. keep stirring continuously and when all the milk evaporates add this to the sugar and jaggery syrup. Now add 2 or 3 Tablespoons of ghee, add the nuts and elachi , stir and remove into a serving dish. This version also tastes good as the milk forms as khoya when evaporated and moreover less in calories.