Huggi

Udupi sweet rice-moong porridge — rice and split yellow moong dal pressure-cooked together with water, jaggery, coconut milk, and cardamom until both dissolve into a thick, golden, fragrant porridge. Finished with a generous pour of ghee in which cashews and raisins are fried until golden and coconut pieces are fried until brown. The huggi is the Karnataka Brahmin sweet pongal: the same concept as Tamil chakarai pongal and Tamil ven pongal combined into the sweet version. The use of coconut milk alongside jaggery gives the Udupi huggi a deeper, more tropical sweetness than the milk-based payasam. Made specifically for the Udupi temple prasadam on festival days — particularly the Paryaya festival (when the eight Mathas of Udupi take turns administering the Krishna temple) — and for the Gokulashtami celebration.