Banana Huggi Recipe | Banana Pongal : Unique pongal recipe

Wishing all of you a very happy Makara Sankranti | Pongal | Lohri.

 

 Did I mention before that we are moving again? Hold on.., this time we are moving to another house near by and not to another Country. I have made good friends here at my apartment and am definitely gonna miss them. Banana pongal is one of the recipes that I learnt from my friend here. I am planning to get as many recipes possible from her and try before I move. Keep watching this space, there's more coming :)

The color of the pongal will be anywhere from light brown to very dark brown depending on the type of jaggery used. However, the color does not alter the taste of the pongal in any ways.

Other pongal recipes 

Oats Pongal

Khara Pongal

Preparation Time: 10 mins
Cooking Time: 40 mins
Serves: 3-4

Ingredients:
Raw rice: 1/2 cup, refer notes
Water: 1 cup,
Banana: 1 medium sized, refer notes

Jaggery | Brown sugar: 1/2 cup, refer notes
Water: 1/4 cup, more or less
Ghee | Clarified butter: 3 tbsp + 2 tsp
Grated coconut: 1 tbsp, fresh or frozen
Cardamom powder: a pinch
Cashew nuts: 1/2 tsp
Chopped almonds: 1/2 tsp
Raisins: 1/2 tsp

Method:
Wash the rice thoroughly and let it soak for 30 mins.
Add the water to it. Pressure cook the rice for 4-5 whistles.Allow the cooker to cool for 10 mins.
Meantime, add water to the roughly pound jaggery and heat it on a medium heat.

When the jaggery is dissolved in water, strain the jaggery water. (Refer notes below)
Put the water back in the same sauce pan and bring it to a boil.
Mash the cooked rice.
When water starts boiling, add the cooked rice to it and mix well. Add 2 tbsp of ghee and allow the rice to cook again for 3-5 mins on low-medium heat.

Finely chop the banana and add the chopped banana to the rice mixture along with a tbsp of ghee.

Mix well and cook again for couple of mins.
Mash the bananas along with the rice and add the cardamom powder, grated coconut. Cook for 3-5 mins.

Meantime, heat about 2 tsp of ghee in a small sauce pan. When ghee is hot, throw in the chopped cashews and almonds.

When nuts turn golden brown, turn off the heat and add raisins. When raisins plump up, pour the nuts over the cooked pongal.

Mix well and serve it hot.

Notes:

• Raw rice is preferred for the pongal. But, if you do not have it, you could make is using ponni or sona masoori rice (or any small grain rice). I suggest adding a little more water to the sona masoori rice as they dont turn soft or mushy easily. (My rice did end up grainy as you can see in the pictures. I did not have raw rice).
• When the rice is still hot, mash the rice so that the huggi/pongal becomes mushy. 
• A well ripened banana is what we need for this huggi. Do not use the green ones.
• Our family prefers huggi to be sweeter. You could reduce the amount of jaggery to a little more than 1/4 cup (for the quantity mentioned above).
• Jaggery has lot of impurities. Hence, it is advised to strain the jaggery water before making anything using jaggery.