Sakkarai Pongal

Happy Krishna Jayanthi!!!

Sri Krishna Jayanthi - also known as Gokulashtami or Janmashtami, is the birthday of Lord Krishna. In Tamilnadu the houses are decorated with Maavilai and thoranam(leaves from mango and palm trees). Patterns of small feet, drawn with rice flour are made, leading from the house entrance to the puja room, where the idol of Lord Krishna is kept. This symbolises the baby Krishna coming to his devotees' house to bless them and leaving behind his footsteps.Special dishes like murukku, seedai, vella seedai, thengozhal, payasam are all made and offered to the Lord. In the evening, usually a special pooja is done to mark the occasion and people ask one another "krishnar onga veetukku vandacha?" (Has Krishna come to your house?). Kids are also dressed up as Krishna and Radha (young Krishna's lady love at Brindavan).
Source- Chennai online



Ingredients

Raw Rice-1 cup
Moong dal-1tsp
Milk-1 cup
Jaggery grated-2 ½ cups
cashews-10
Raisins-10-15
Ghee-3 tbsp
Elachi powder- 1 tsp

Method

Pressure cook rice and moongdal with milk+water in the ratio of 1:4.
Add ½ cup of water to the jaggery and heat it. When the jagagery melts completely in water , remove from fire, filter it( to remove the dirt from jaggery) and add to the cooked rice. Stir for 3 mins so that the rice and the jaggery blend together.
Heat ghee in a pan and add cashews and raisins to it. Fry till it becomes golden brown and add to the pongal. Finally add elachi powder to it.