What are the best traditional rice and millet varieties to make pongal with? We ask the experts. Sreedevi Lakshmikutty of social enterprise Bio Basics offers us a tasting of sweet and venpongal made with rice and millets sold at her city-based organic store. There is venpongal made of thooyamalli, kichili samba, and iluppai poo samba, apart from sweet pongal with karuppu kavuni and thinai (foxtail millet).
“All of these are traditional varieties grown in Tamil Nadu,” she says, adding that by opting to incorporate them in our everyday diet, we are “celebrating farmers and our grains.” Thooyamalli, which has a natural white sheen and is fragrant like the jasmine it is named after, makes for an excellent choice. The venpongal is fluffy, and retains the flavour of the rice. Although kichili and iluppai poo samba fade in comparison to it in appearance, they make up for it in taste. Both varieties turn out mushy when cooked with dal, which is exactly the texture of a perfect pongal.
