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.

Sweet Corn Mushroom Soup

One more heart warming soup from my kitchen!

I have combined 4 colors of vegetables and protein packed, low calorie mushrooms in my soup. Don't ask me why I added yellow pumpkin to this soup. Yeah, there is a Thai special yellow pumpkin soup but this method is totally different. I was on a look out for vegetables to add to my healthy soup and that is when I saw the yellow pumpkin sitting in the comforts of my fridge, (yeah! It's damn hot outside and I don't have an ac for myself) staring at me. So added a piece of it too.

Generally, it is good to include as many colors in your diet err.. I mean different colored vegetables and not a pack of gems. I have already spoken enough about goodness of vegetables and my fervor for them. This time around, I reduced the amount of butter and milk making the soup totally healthy. I should admit, this is the best of all soups I have made till date.

Ingredients:

Mix of vegetables - I used carrot, beans, cabbage, celery, sweet corn,yellow pumpkin, Used 4 diff colored vegetables)- 1 cup
Green Chillies - 2
Mushroom - half a cup
Corn flour - 1 tablespoon
Milk - half a cup
Butter - 2 tsp
Ghee - 1 tsp
Salt & pepper to taste



Method:
1. Pressure cook the vegetables and green chillies with water.
2. Cook the mushrooms separately (just sprinkle a little water and cook in a open pan till all water from mushroom oozes out). Add the ghee and fry the mushrooms crisp. Set aside.
3. Extract the veg stock from the cooked vegetables and extract the pulp using a soup extractor. Since I do not have one, I just put them in a blender and made a paste.
4. Heat butter in a pan, fry the corn flour till golden yellow. Add milk and cook till it forms a paste. (You can skip this if you do not want to have butter and milk)
5. Add the veg stock and pulp. Add more water depending on the consistency. Add salt and bring it to a boil.
6. Add the fried mushrooms to the soup and serve hot with salt & pepper.

Kwik Fix Series # 7 - Lemon Rice

Next recipe that gets to feature in my kwik fix series is Lemon Rice. It is so basic for a South Indian that I can hear some of you exclaiming "huh! recipe for lemon rice!". It is such an easy breezy recipe and I would like to post it in my space for the benefit of those who have not heard of it , so far. If you perform a survey on South Indian lunch boxes on any given day, I am positive that every alternate box would carry lemon rice. Okay! If not 50% at least 25%; trust me. As a child, I was always thrilled to carry this with potato fry.

If you have leftover rice, you can make this in a jiffy. Season the rice and squeeze in some lemon juice, you are ready to go!

Though I call it a simple recipe, I feel it needs utmost perfection. I don't like my rice oily or with a dark yellow color. I have added minimal oil, just right amount of turmeric for the perfect bright yellow color and as an end result got a juicy lemon rice. Perfect for lunch boxes!

Ingredients:
Cooked rice - 1 cup (Bring down the rice to room temperature, spread the rice without sticking to each other)
Green chillies - 2 medium chopped
Curry leaves - 5
Mustard - 2 tsp
Channa dhal - 1 tsp
Urad dhal - 1 tsp
Oil - 1 tsp
Turmeric powder - half to one tsp
Lemon - 1
Salt to taste
Hing a pinch

Method:

1) Take a small seasoning pan, heat the oil. Add hing, channa dhal, urad dhall and mustard. When the mustard pops, switch off the gas.
2) Remove the pan, add chillies, turmeric and curry leaves in that order. The heat in the pan is enough to cook the chillies.
3) Add salt to the rice and pour the seasoning. Mix well.
4) Squeeze in the lemon juice, without the seeds. Have a check on the amount of juice. If you are using a real juicy one, squeeze in half a lemon, taste once and then add more juice to taste.
5) Close the rice for half an hour for the juices to blend.
Serve with potato wafers or my fiery hot potato fry. Any spicy curry will go well with this rice.

Tip: You can add peanuts or cashews with the seasoning.

I have seen people making this in a different way. After seasoning, add the rice to the pan with the heat still on, mix well, switch off and then squeeze in the juice.