Read it, Make it, Blog it - Ven Pongal and Gosthu

Pin It Now! Yes, this is what happened today. I happened to read several posts with recipes for pongal and gosthu. Coincidentally I also happened to have all the ingredients at hand. So this became our dinner for today and my lunch for tomorrow.

The recipe of my choice is from this beautiful website Tasty Palettes by Suganya. If you have never been to this blog take my word you are missing one of the good looking blogs in the blogging world.
In fact the way she describes the pongal "Smooth like butter, it should reach the stomach directly, without any effort to chew. It should neither be too thick, nor runny " got me completely sold. It seemed like a comfort food perfect to beat my monday evening blues.You know those evenings where you know you have a week to go before you say TGIF.
Anyways where were we.. at the recipe i suppose. I followed her recipe closely for Ven pongal and Gosthu and did not make any modifications.The mild and simple flavours were taken very well on a hot summer evening.
 Gosthu ( Recipe adapted from Tasty Palettes)
Ingredients
Moong dal – ¼ cup
Mixed vegetables (eggplant, carrot, potato) – 2 cups, cubed
Onion or shallots – ½ cup, sliced
Tomato – 1, chopped
Tamarind – 1 tbsp
Jaggery – 1 tsp
Turmeric powder – 1 tsp
Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
Curry leaves – few
Cilantro – 2 tbsp, chopped
Oil – 1 tbsp
1tbsp - sambhar powder
Method

Pressure cook moong dal until soft. This can be cooked along with rice and dal for the pongal.

In a sauce pan, heat oil, splutter mustard seeds. Add onion and tomato along with curry leaves, and sauté for about 2 minutes. To this, add tamarind paste, turmeric powder, jaggery, salt and 2 cups of water and stir until the tamarind paste is completely dissolved in the water. Add the sambhar powder and cover and cook till the vegetables are cooked.

Finally, add the cooked dal. Bring it to a boil. Garnish with cilantro and serve hot with pongal.

Another look at it...

Since the Gosthu uses tamarind I would like to send a helping to the Think Spice - Tamarind event started by Sunita at Sunita's World and hosted by PJ at Seduce Your Taste Buds.