Pongal

Ingredients:
1 cup - raw rice (do not need Basmathi rice for this item)1/3 cup - Green gram daal (split Moong daal)
½ cup milk (optional)
1 tsp - black pepper
1 ½ tsp - cumin seeds
1 tbsp - broken cashew nuts
1 tbsp - finely cut ginger (optional)a few curry leaves
1 tbsp – ghee (use oil if fat conscious, flavor is good with ghee)
5 cups - water
salt to taste

Method
1. Wash rice and daal and cook them together with water and salt in pressure cooker for15min - or until 4 whistles (Indian pressure cookers).
2. Add half a cup of boiled hot milk to the cooked rice-daal mixture.
3. Sautee ginger, cashew nuts, pepper, cumin seeds in ghee till light brown, add curry leaves and fry few more seconds.
4. Pour this spice mixture over the rice-dal mixture.
5. Mix well and serve steaming hot with sambaar, coconut chutney, or ginger chutney. Pongal tastes good by itself.