With love from Mom

This morning I received a delightful mail from my mother with the recipe for this dish:

The famous Pongal. I never really liked this dish for some unknown reason. It tastes delicious here and now.

Some time back I used to buy Pongal when I was down with a fever or a cold. It is the perfect dish for such a time, because it is the only dish that is easily available with black pepper, which I think is a good cure for these problems.

Rice and moong dal cooked really soft, it is semi-solid and garnished with cumin seeds and pepper corns in oil . Ideally, these should be fried in clarified butter (ghee) which allows the pongal to be blessed with an indescribable aroma. Should be eaten with fragrant coconut chutney, which I cannot make here of course. So I make do with a pickle. Another alternative would be raitha - some fresh vegetables, sev mixture in curds.

I always suspected that my mom made this dish really often because it is really easy to make. My suspicions were confirmed. Time taken : around 20 minutes, actual effort around 5 minutes (to wash the ingredients and then for garnishing).

I enjoyed the sun set today. It was beautiful and because I live at a height, I can see it well for a long time. The sky was left a deep purple for about 10 minutes. A real treat.