Murukku ~ Indian Cooking Challenge September 2009

This month's challenge is murukku. This is not the first time I am making this. I have already made murukku using rice flour and besan. That, we call as magizhampoo.

This recipe makes use of rice flour and urad dhall flour and we call this as thenguzhal.

Before I started cooking, I used to think making murukku needs lot of skill and practice. I have not even seen some one making it and had no idea about the procedure.

After coming here to US, chances of getting good quality snacks is less, rather zero and only then, I decided to invest in a murukku press. I was quite hesitant to try making it. But to my surprise, the result was awesome. I got perfect, oil free, melt-in-the-mouth murukkus in the very first attempt. I even managed to send a pack of them to one of my friends in a different state.

This time, I followed the exact recipe as given by Srivalli and was a great success.

Preparation time - 20 to 30 mins
Cooking time - 20 to 30 mins
makes: approximately 250g of murukku
Cuisine: Andhra & Tamil Nadu
Utensils needed:
Muruku/ chakli press
Kadai

Ingredients needed:
Raw Rice 4 cups
urad dhal 1 cup
Water app 1/2 cup or more

For seasoning:
Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
Sesame seeds - 1 tsp
Hing - 1/2 tsp
Salt to taste
Butter - 75 g

Method to prepare:

Wash and drain the rice. Shade dry the Rice for 1/2 hr. Dry roast the Urad dal to light brown. Allow it to cool.

If you are using more quantity, you can get it ground in rice mil, else use your mixie to grind both Rice and Urad dal.

First grind rice into a fine flour, keep it aside. then grind the urad dal to fine powder.

In a wide vessel, take both the flours along with salt. Mix well. Add cumin, Sesame seeds to the flour, mix well.

Whether you use Asafetida powder or the solid ones, you got to mix it in water, make sure it is dissolved before adding to the flour. If its not dissolved properly, when deep frying the muruku, there are chances for the hing to burst our due to air bubbles.

Mix in the hing to the flour and finally add the butter. Gather everything well and you will get more of a crumbling mixture. Now slowly add water and knead a dough which is little more softer than the puri dough.

Heat a kadai with oil enough to deep fry. Once the oil is hot enough, simmer to low flame.
Take the Muruku Aachu, wash and wipe it clean. Then divide the dough into equal balls. Fill the Muruku maker with the dough. You can either press it directly over the flames or press over a paper and gently slide it down the hot oil. But since the quantity mentioned here is less, you can press it directly over the kadai.

Cook over medium flame, using a slotted spoon, turn it over to other side to ensure both sides turn golden colour. You will know by seeing the colour that its cooked. Remove to a kitchen paper and store it in a air tight container.

This normally stays good for weeks, provided you forget about these which hardly happens!

Notes:

Things to remember for not making your muruku break into pieces. Its important to roast the Urad dal to just brown and not very brown.

Rice used should have some starch to hold the shape, else it might crumble down.

Adding too much butter can also result in the fried murukus to break. You can start with half and slowly increase by feel the dough. The dough with the right amount of butter, will be soft but not very soft.

If you don't have a muruku aachu, you can use a plastic cover/ ziplock cover with thin hole to press out the dough or even icing bags with different heads can be thought of.