Murukku - It's Festival Season.. Let's Begin

Murukku / Festival / Evening Snack

There is no reason to wait for the festival season when it is about murukku. We have seen many varieties of murukku. Different in size, shape, taste, texture, colour, place of origin, even different for the occasion for which it is made. It was a very rare instance when I get to see someone in my family make murukku.. like my grandma or my auntie. I have never seen my mom making murukku. The first time I made murukku was for one Krishna Jayanthi, when my daughter was 3 years old. I am here to share this simple recipe for murukku which we all like in our family. This recipe was from my grandmom (nanamma).

Getting ready with the murukku flour:

Ingredients for basic murukku flour:

• Raw Rice / flour (maavu) rice - 1 kg
• Gram dhal - 250 grams
• Urad dhal - 250 grams

               (OR)

 Measurement in cup:

• Raw Rice / flour rice - 2 cups
• Gram dhal - 1/2 cup
• Urad dhal - 1/2 cup

• In this recipe, I use rice, gram dhal and urad dhal to make the murukku flour.
• After buying them from the shop, I dry roast the urad dhal and gram dhal alone. 
• For rice, you can use the ordinary raw rice or the flour rice (maavu arisi).
• Once the rice and the pulses are ready, give them in the flour mill and get it ground to fine flour. This is easier. 

Tips:

• You can make big batch of murukku flour and divide it into portions in zip-locks and store it in fridge. Every time you want to make murrukku, take a pack, wrap a old cloth (as the pack will condense water) and keep it on the counter top for some time, wait for it to come to room temperature, then you can use it.
• If you feel the rice is not clean, then wash the rice, soak for 30 mins and sun dry the rice very well. Now, give this dried rice along with the roasted dhals to the flour mill to make murukku flour.

Let us see the ingredients for making murukku with the home made murukku flour.

Ingredients for murukku:

• Murukku flour - 2 cups
• Chilli powder - 1/2 teaspoon
• Salt - 3/4th teaspoon
• Asafoetida - 1 pinch
• Sesame seeds or cumin seeds - 2 teaspoons
• Ghee (semi solid consistency) - 1 tablespoon
• Water - as required to make a dough

Procedure:

• Take all the dry ingredients in a wide mouthed bowl.
• Add the ghee and mix up well so that the ghee is evenly mixed. 
• Now add water little by little and kneed it to a dough. Take care not to add more water at once.
• You will get a soft and non sticky dough. 
• In the mean while heat oil for frying.
• Take the murukku press. Put the respective plate with 3 holes into the press.
• With the wet hand wipe the inside wall of the press.
• Take a small portion of the dough and put it inside the press and keep it aside.
• Take a broad laddle and grease it with oil on the back side.
• Press murukku on the oil greased side of the ladle.
• When the oil is hot, drop the murukku carefully into the oil.
• Let it fry till the bubbles or the effervescence stops. You need not wait till it turns brown.
• Remove it from oil. Let it cool before you store it in a air tight box.

The excellent evening time / festival snack is ready.

Recipe for the murukku with the instant flours: (another method)

Ingredients:

• Rice flour - home made or store bought) - 2 cups
• Urad dhal flour - 1/2 cup
• Gram dhal flour - 1/2 cups
• Ghee - 1 tablespoon
• Salt - as required
• Chilli powder - 1/2 teaspoon
• Cumin seeds or sesame seeds - 1 teaspoon
• Asafoetida - 1 pinch
• Water - as required to make dough
• Oil - to fry

We can use the store bought rice flour, gram dhal flour and urad dhal flour also. If you use the store bought flours, then dry roast the flours separately and then use it. The ratio of the rice flour : urad dhal flour : gram dhal flour is 4:1:1. Mix the ingredients mentioned above to make murukku.

For the recipe of home made rice flour click the link Rice flour - Basics
For more recipes - Festival foods, Murukku version 2

General Tips:

• Do not mix all the flour with water to make the dough. Divide the 2 cups murukku flour to 3 portions. Add water to one portion, knead to a dough and make murukkus. Once you finish this batch, take the next portion and make dough to make murukku. The reason why we do this in small batches is, if we knead all the flour into dough, by the time we finish frying the murukkus, the last few murukkus will become dark in colour as the dough is not supposed to sit for long. The dry flour can wait, but not the dough.
• You can add butter instead of ghee.. but add butter which is in room temperature. You can add hot oil too instead of ghee or butter. But I add ghee as the murukku will have a nice ghee flavour.
• While dropping the murukku in oil, take the ladle close to the oil, and drop them gently so that the oil doesn't splash on you.
• We should be careful with any deep frying process. How much ever care we take, there might be some impurities in the ingredients like sand.. or some air bubble in the murukku dough or due to some unknown reason, there is always the chance of the frying item to burst or pop in oil. When you add the first batch of oil, always be prepared to face if it pops in oil. So, add a single murukku first time. Make sure it is safe, then continue the frying.
• Do not transfer the murukku into some box when it is still hot. It will not remain crunchy. Store murukkus in an air tight container after it has reached the room temperature.

Happy cooking !!