Coconut Rice | Thengai Sadam | Grated Coconut Rice | Kobbari Annam

Coconut Rice | Thengai Sadam | Grated Coconut Rice | Kobbari Annam is one of the traditional variety rice in South India. It is prepared by seasoning the cooked rice with fresh coconut gratings. It is one among the variety rice like tamarind rice/pulihora/puliyodharai, lemon rice, curd rice and usually prepared for festivals like Kaanum Pongal, Aadi Perukku, Valai Kaappu/Seemandham, etc. All these   are not only festival rice varieties but ideal for lunch box & lazy holidays too. On the whole, coconut rice takes a special place as it is easy to prepare for moms and tasty to relish for kids when paired with suitable spicy curry.

My son also loves this flavourful rice and prefers to have this not only in his lunch box but sometimes on Sundays too. I would happily accept his offer whenever I have a stock of fresh grated coconut on hand.

Last Sunday, he suggested making coconut rice on seeing me grating the coconut and here comes the recipe.

Ingredients:

Cooked rice – 2 cups

Ghee | Coconut oil – 1 tbsp

Salt to taste

For seasoning:

Ghee | Coconut oil – 1 tbsp

Mustard – 1 tsp

Bengal gram dhal | Kadalai Paruppu | Channa dhal – 2 tbsp

Green chillies (Finely chopped) – 2 Nos

Red chilli (break into 2) – 1 No.

Curry leaves – few

Coconut gratings – ¾ cup to 1 cup

Cashew nuts / Groundnuts– as needed

Salt – as  needed for seasoning

Method:

Wash rice and cook with enough water & salt until soft but not mushy.

Allow the cooked rice to cool. When it is warm to handle, sprinkle ghee/coconut oil and mix well without breaking the grains.

In a kadai, heat ghee/oil and splutter mustard seeds.

Add channa dhal & cashew nuts/ groundnuts and fry till they become golden brown. 

Then add both chillies, followed by curry leaves.

Finally add coconut gratings and sauté till the moisture in the coconut dried up without changing its colour. Switch off.

Add required salt to the seasoning, mix everything well. Remember we’ve added salt while cooking the rice too. Add accordingly.

Add the cooled rice to the seasoning and mix everything well.

Tasty, flavourful Coconut Rice is ready to enjoy! We had this yummy coconut rice with spicy potato fry and tasted divine.

Note:

I’ve used Ponni boiled rice, you can use any good quality raw rice too.

It is always good to eat fresh coconut and hence I prefer the coconut gratings to be sauted for few minutes without changing much of its colour. If you plan to have it after some hours,  it’s better to sauté for more time to avoid spoiling of coconut.

Adding ghee/coconut oil gives a nice flavour to the rice. You can also use any cooking oil.

It is always better to use salt while cooking rice for preparing any variety rice as it adds taste to the rice grains. If you don’t want, you can skip and add the required salt for the dish at the last step.

Tags: Coconut rice recipe, How to prepare authentic coconut rice at home?, Rice variety, Festival recipes, Traditional coconut rice recipe, rice with coconut recipe, Thengai choru recipe, Thengaai saadham,  kannum pongal recipes, Aadi perukku recipes, Aadi 18 recipes, valaikaappu recipes, Seemantham recipes, Variety rice recipes, traditional variety rice recipes, Lunch box recipes, Yummy lunch combo, Coconut rice with potato fry, Easy lunch box recipes, easy rice variety, simple coconut rice, coconut rice with coconut gratings, Kobbari Annam recipe, Ugadhi recipes

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How to prepare Sarkarai Pongal in a traditional open pot ...| Sakkarai Pongal Recipe | Sweet Pongal Recipe

Thai Pongal otherwise known as Tamizhar Thirunaal in Tamilnadu is celebrated in Mid-January. The festival spans four days starting from  the last day of Markazhi and first three days of Thai. Basically this festival is celebrated as a mark of showing our gratitude to “Nature”.  The celebration starts with Bhogi or Mahar Sankranthi , on this day everyone prepares their house for celebrating Pongal by discarding the old, unused items from their house. The next day is Pongal.  On this day, Pongal is made out of the harvested rice. This Pongal along with farm fresh vegetables ,  sugarcane, etc are offered to the Sun God. The next day is Mattu Pongal, celebrated  for the bullocks which help in all agriculture activities. The fourth day is observed as Kaanum Pongal and everyone visits their relatives’ houses to get the blessings of the elders.

In the olden days, many people used to get a new mud pot for making Pongal on the day of Thai Pongal. As the new mud pot  cannot be used straight away  for cooking, it needs to be processed for cooking . So, the preparation for Pongal festival starts a few days ahead.  Some families traditionally follow the way of making pongal in a brass vessel called Vengala Paanai (Brass Pot) and the paanai will be handed over to the next generations. Whatever the pot they use, it needs to be decorated with colourful drawings and  some special flowers,  manjal kizhangu is to be tied around the neck of the pot. The stove will be kept in the open yard and Pongal will be prepared in the special vessel and after preparation it will be offered to Sun-god Surya.

Now, in the apartment culture, it is not at all possible to prepare Pongal in the open yard, but we can make Pongal in Paanai |Pot using our regular stove top. While preparing Pongal, it is customary to let it spill out from  the pot. The symbolism behind the spilling of Pongal is that peace, prosperity and joy must spill over from the pot of life throughout the year.So it is always good to prepare Pongal in open vessel atleast on this day of Pongal instead of using pressure cookers.

Today, I am going to tell you the procedure for making Sakkarai Pongal in Pongal Paanai! The traditional open pot method of preparing Sarkarai Pongal follows few steps and it will get cooked in half-an-hour's time since we are using raw rice.

Ingredients:

• Ponni raw rice – 1 cup
• Green moong dhal – ½ cup
• Water – 5 cups
• Milk – 1  cup
• Crushed jaggery – 1 cup (heap measure)
• Coconut gratings – ½ cup
• Cardamom powder – 1 tsp
• Ghee – 2 tbsp
• Cashew nuts – a handful
• Raisins – a handful

Method:

1. Wash raw rice and moong dhal  in water together  twice. Then add 5 cups of water to this, drain the water alone into the pot in which we are going to prepare Pongal.
2. Place the pot over the stove top, add ¼ cup of milk and bring it to boil. Allow the water to boil till it gets spilled over from the pot. Now is the time for “Pongalo Pongal!!” from you and the rest of your family JJJ
3. Reduce the fire immediately and take out   ½  cup of water from the pot and keep it separately. Add the rice, dhal and stir well and cook in simmer stirring now and then.
4. In the mean time, fry cashew nuts and raisins in a tsp of ghee and keep aside.
5. Melt jaggery in ½ cup of water and strain the impurities.
6. When the rice-dhal is done, add the remaining milk and stir well by mashing the rice gently. When the rice absorbs the added milk, add the strained jaggery syrup and mix well. After some time, pongal reaches thick pouring consistency, add cardamom powder, coconut gratings, fried cashew nuts and raisins and stir well Then add the balance ghee and switch off.

Your Sarkarai Pongal | Sakkarai Pongal prepared in a traditional way,  is ready for Pooja!

Note:

• The pot you have chosen for making pongal should be of correct size i.e if you are going to prepare pongal  with 200g rice, it is enough if you choose the pot size of around 2 litres size!
• I have used only one cup of jaggery but you can raise the quantity to 1 ½ cups and better to use Paagu vellam to get brownish colour.

Have a Happy & Prosperous Pongal! Pongalo Pongal!!!

Tags: Sarkarai pongal recipe, Thai Pongal recipe, Festival recipes, Traditional method of making Pongal in a pot, how to prepare pongal in open vessel?, sweetened rice recipe, Sweet pongal recipe with jaggaery, Sweet pongal recipe with Paagu vellam.

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