Pongal: the ghee, pepper and rice dish and the festival

Pongal is a South Indian dish of rice and split moong dal cooked to a soft, creamy porridge and seasoned with ghee, black pepper, cumin and curry leaves. The word also names a sweet version made with jaggery and the Tamil harvest festival held in mid-January, so pongal means both a dish and an occasion.

What is pongal?

Pongal is a rice and lentil dish from Tamil Nadu that is served in two forms: ven pongal, which is savoury, and sakkarai pongal, which is sweet. The name comes from a Tamil word meaning to boil over.

Ven pongal is a common breakfast in Tamil Nadu and in South Indian restaurants. It is soft and slightly sticky, with a peppery, buttery flavour. It is eaten hot, usually with sambar and coconut chutney alongside.

The name also refers to the harvest festival, Thai Pongal, during which the sweet version is cooked outdoors as a ritual offering. Spellings include pongal, ven pongal and khara pongal, the last being a Karnataka name for the savoury type.

What is in ven pongal?

Ven pongal contains rice, split yellow moong dal, ghee, black peppercorns, cumin seeds, ginger, curry leaves, salt and often cashews. These few ingredients give the dish its character.

• Rice: short-grain or raw rice, cooked until very soft.
• Moong dal: split and hulled green gram, usually lightly roasted before cooking.
• Ghee: clarified butter, used generously for the tempering and often stirred in at the end.
• Black pepper and cumin: whole peppercorns give small bursts of heat.
• Ginger and curry leaves: fresh flavour in the tempering.
• Cashews: fried in ghee and added at the end.

Asafoetida is a common small addition. The result is mild and rich rather than hot.

How is pongal made?

Pongal is made by cooking rice and moong dal together with water until very soft and mushy, then stirring in a tempering of ghee, pepper, cumin, ginger, cashews and curry leaves. It usually takes about 30 minutes.

1. Dry roast the moong dal lightly until it smells nutty.
2. Rinse the rice and dal and cook them with about four times their volume of water and salt until completely soft.
3. Mash gently with the back of a spoon so the texture becomes creamy.
4. Heat ghee, fry cashews, then add peppercorns, cumin, ginger and curry leaves.
5. Pour the tempering into the pot and stir through.

The consistency should be soft enough to fall off a spoon, but not so wet that it pools on the plate. Hot water can be stirred in to loosen it if it stiffens.

What does pongal taste like?

Pongal tastes mild, buttery and peppery, with a soft, porridge-like texture. The ghee gives richness, the pepper a gentle bite, and the cumin and ginger a warm background.

It is closer in feel to a savoury risotto or rice porridge than to a dry rice dish. Most people eat it with sambar, whose tang and spice cut across the mildness.

What is sakkarai pongal?

Sakkarai pongal is the sweet pongal, made with rice, moong dal, jaggery, ghee, cardamom and nuts. It is the dish cooked at the Pongal festival and offered to the sun.

Sakkarai means sugar or jaggery in Tamil. The rice and dal are cooked with milk or water until soft, and jaggery syrup is stirred in with cardamom, cashews and raisins fried in ghee. It is sometimes called chakkara pongal or sweet pongal.

What is the Pongal festival?

The Pongal festival is a four-day harvest festival celebrated by Tamils in mid-January, around the winter solstice’s turn toward longer days. It thanks the sun and farm animals for the harvest.

The four days are traditionally Bhogi, Thai Pongal, Mattu Pongal and Kaanum Pongal. On Thai Pongal, rice is boiled with milk in a new pot outdoors until it bubbles over, and people shout “Pongalo Pongal” at that moment. Houses are cleaned and decorated with kolam patterns drawn in rice flour. The festival is called Makar Sankranti in other parts of India and is observed at about the same time.

What is pongal served with?

Savoury pongal is served with sambar and coconut chutney, and it often comes with a medhu vadai on the side. This combination is a standard South Indian breakfast.

Pongal is rich enough that a small portion fills a plate. Sambar adds a sour and spiced lentil contrast, and chutney adds coolness. Some people make a small well in the centre of the pongal and add a spoon of ghee. In restaurants, pongal is commonly part of a tiffin plate with idli, vadai and a sweet.

Pongal vs khichdi: what is the difference?

Pongal is a South Indian rice and moong dal dish cooked soft and seasoned with ghee, pepper and cumin, while khichdi is a broader family of rice and lentil dishes from across India. Pongal is a specific form of the idea.

Khichdi can be made with several dals and spices, from very plain to very spiced, and is eaten in many styles from Gujarat to Bengal. Pongal is usually richer in ghee and pepper and is always eaten with sambar and chutney in the South Indian style.

Where does pongal appear on the Maruthi menu?

The Maruthi South Indian Restaurant menu records pongal as one of the five items in the Mini Tiffin combo, a sampler of idli, vadai, pongal, a mini masala dosa and kesari, served with sambar and chutney. This is from the menu recorded in November 2026.

No standalone pongal appears in the menu recorded for this guide, so anyone who wants it on its own should ask the restaurant by phone. The independent guide to the full menu lists the other dishes, and the hours and location page has the opening times and the Tuesday closure. No prices are recorded.

Common questions

For the address, opening hours and menu, see Maruthi South Indian Restaurant in Brampton.

This article is general information from an independent guide, not from Maruthi South Indian Restaurant itself. For the store’s current details see hours and location.