Instant Pot Kalkandu Sadam is a festival special sweet rice recipe prepared with sugar candy, rice, and milk, popularly known as Kalkandu Sadam or Kalkandu Pongal.
Pongal Festival
Pongal or Makar Sankranti is the Indian harvest festival celebrated differently across the Indian subcontinent. In Tamil Nadu, we call the festival pongal festival/pongal pandigai. Sweet pongal, aka sakkarai pongal, is an important dish we make for the pongal festival with freshly harvested rice. On the third day, the Kanu pongal, we make a variety of rice dishes or kalanda sadam, and for sweets, we make this kalkandu pongal or kalkandu sadam.
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Kalkandu Pongal
Kalkandu means sugar candy/rock sugar candy, and as we use that for sweetening this dish, we call it kalkandu pongal. You can use an equal measure of sugar and sugar candy. But I always use sugar candy, and my pongal is not too sweet, and it’s on the milder side. So please adjust the sugar candy as per your sweet preference.
You can make this kalkandu sadam for any festival including adi perukku. It’s one of the easiest dishes to prepare, and here is my Instant Pot version. Before getting into the recipe, I wanted to share about Instant pot lid and inner pot cleaning.
Cleaning Instant Pot sealing rings before making desserts
The sealing ring and cover retain the aroma/smell of the food. You won’t feel the difference when you prepare recipes with strong spices, but when you make mild ones without spices, especially yogurt and dessert, you will smell the previous dishes. I highly recommend using a different sealing ring for sweet dishes and desserts. But if you have only one sealing ring, clean it properly. Here is how I clean the pot to remove the smell/aroma, which works like a charm. :-)
Cleaning the Pot:
Fill ¾ of the Instant pot with water, add soap solution, and add ¼ cup of vinegar or 1 tbsp baking soda. Set this in saute mode, and once the water starts to boil, turn it off. Let it soak, and when the water is warm and easy to handle, scrub the vessel and clean it.
Cleaning the Lid:
Remove the sealing ring from the lid and wash the lid and sealing ring with vinegar and liquid soap or baking soda and soap. Wash it thoroughly and keep it under the sun. This step helps a lot in removing the smell.
Ingredients required
With minimal ingredients, you can make this pongal easily. It’s a very simple recipe. All we need to do is cook the rice with milk until it’s soft and mushy, add powdered sugar candy, and cook again until it mixes. Add the regular ghee tempering, and you are all set. When festive days fall during weekdays, this is my go-to recipe.
Rice: We typically make this dish with raw rice, typically ponni or sona masoori (short grain variety). But you can replace rice with millet or any other grain.
Milk and water: We need milk and water to cook the rice, and we also add extra milk, which helps obtain a creamy texture. I have tried this pongal with reduced fat and whole milk, and I recommend whole milk for sure.
Sugar candy: I used a minimal amount, but please adjust the measure as per your sweet preference. We grind it so that it dissolves easily.
Flavor enhancers: We use edible camphor and ground cardamom to enhance the flavor, and I also use some saffron to garnish, which is optional.
To Temper: Raisins and cashews tempered in ghee add amazing texture and flavor, and these measures as adjustable as per your preference.
Please refer to the recipe card for exact measurements.
Prep – Work
- Wash the rice and drain the water.
- Powder the ½ cup of sugar candy into a coarse powder.
How to make kalkandu pongal in Instant Pot
- Add the washed rice and 2 cups of water, and 1 cup milk to the instant pot. Set it in manual mode, cook for 5 minutes, and let the pressure release normally.
- Open the lid and mash the rice thoroughly. (Instead of IP, you can pressure cook rice with milk and water for up to four whistles)
- Now set the IP in saute mode again and add the remaining 1.5 cups of milk, powdered sugar candy, cardamom powder, and edible camphor.
- Mix well and let it cook until sugar candy is well incorporated. It took me about 4 minutes. Turn it off or set it to warm mode. I added about ½ tbsp of ghee now, which is optional.
- Now in a separate tempering pan, heat the ghee. Once the ghee is hot, add the cashews and raisins, and fry until golden brown.
- Add this to the pongal and mix well.
- Garnish with saffron strands and serve warm.
Recipe Notes
- I did not add moong dal. But you can add 2 to 3 tbsps of moong dal.
- Edible camphor is optional, but that adds amazing flavors and tastes more like kovil / temple-style pongal.
- Adjust the sugar candy amount as per your preference.
- You can also add ¼ cup sugar candy and ¼ cup sugar.
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📖 Recipe
Instant Pot Kalkandu Sadam | Kalkandu Pongal
Equipment
- Instant Pot or Pressure Cooker
Ingredients
Measurement Details: 1 cup = 240ml; 1 tbsp = 15ml; 1 tsp = 5ml;
Instructions
Prep – Work:
- Wash the rice and drain the water.
- Powder the ½ cup of sugar candy into a coarse powder.
How to make kalkandu pongal in Instant Pot:
- Add the washed rice and 2 cups of water, and 1 cup milk to the instant pot.
- Set it in manual mode, cook for 5 minutes, and let the pressure release normally.
- Open the lid and mash the rice thoroughly. (Instead of IP, you can pressure cook rice with milk and water for up to four whistles)
- Now set the IP in saute mode again and add the remaining 1.5 cups of milk, powdered sugar candy, cardamom powder, and edible camphor.
- Mix well and let it cook until sugar candy is well incorporated. It took me about 4 minutes. Turn it off or set it to warm mode. I added about ½ tbsp of ghee now, which is optional.
- Now in a separate tempering pan, heat the ghee. Once the ghee is hot, add the cashews and raisins, and fry until golden brown.
- Add this to the pongal and mix well.
- Garnish with saffron strands and serve warm.
Notes
- I did not add moong dal. But you can add 2 to 3 tbsps of moong dal.
- Edible camphor is optional, but that adds amazing flavors and tastes more like kovil / temple-style pongal.
- Adjust the sugar candy amount as per your preference.
- You can also add ¼ cup sugar candy and ¼ cup sugar.
Nutrition
I am not a nutritionist. The nutritional information is provided as a courtesy and is an estimate only. It varies depending upon the product types or brands.
Explore more Instant Pot sweet recipes
Update Notes: Earlier posted in 2017, now updated with new pictures, recipe card.
Pristine white ! beautiful color on the kalkandu pongal vidhya ! Love this sweet pongal, as you have mentioned i add moong dal too, may be will try just with rice for this palich pongal! Delish share!
Thank you :-)
I love kalkandu sadam and it has to be one of my favorites when growing up. I am now tempted to make some soon. Such an easy recipe and so delicious.
Thank you.
My mouth waters when I read through the recipe!
I love this Rice and though I may have made this couple of times, won’t mind having it again!.
:-) True.
I have heard such a lot about this pongal I think I will be making it soon. Your pictures are tempting me.
Thanks.. Please do try it out pa.
my fav ponga… send me a big bowl pls
Kandippa.. ;-)
Looks so divine..would love to try this version.
:-) Thanks