Sakkarai Pongal in the traditional way

Hello everyone,
While we know there are various ways to make the Sakkarai Pongal, the usual Sankranthi month, we try to make it in the traditional way.
For the traditional way, we usually take a "pongal paanai" (which is a brass vessel in the shape of a pot). We can tie this around with a piece of banana, a flower, betel leaf, and sugar cane piece and then decorate the pot on all sides with kumkum (vermilion) and sandanam (sandal powder).
You may visualize the pongal paanai as below

Once done, follow the below steps for the recipe

Preparation time: 30 mins

Serving Size: Serves a family of 4

1 measure rice

1/5 measure paitam paruppu (broken green gram)

Around 3 measure of milk and 3 measures of water

Method:

Boil the milk and water together, and allow it to slightly overflow (well this is what is called pongal-o-pongal), if you don't want to dirty the place, you can reduce the gas flame as soon as the milk comes close to overflowing

Next, put the rice and dal into the above, and keep stirring. Allow the rice to become soft and be cooked. 

Parallely, in another vessel, take 1/4 measure of jaggery and 1/4 measure of water. Dissolve the jaggery in water so that no lump remains. Heat this while stirring continuously, so that it becomes a thick syrup

Now, add the jaggery syrup to the vessel with pongal. Stir well.

Add ghee.

Fry cashew nuts, raisins and badam in ghee and add to the above mixture. 

In 1.25 measure of milk, add elaichi, saffron, and slight edible menthol, then add this to the above mixture.

Top up with ghee

Enjoy the hot sakkarai pongal :)

Thanks