Mullu Murukku (Rice & Lentil Muruku)

Blogging Marathon# 45: Week 1/ Day 1
Theme: Diwal Festival Specials
Dish: Muruku

After the mega marathon last month, we are back to our regular BM schedule with 3 day blogging each week this month. For the first week, my theme is 'Festival Special -- Diwali'. Since Diwali is right around the corner (October 23, 2014), I thought I will post some specials that I would make for the festival.

For the first day, I made crispy and crunchy murukkus that are made using rice and lentil flour. I found this recipe on DK's Chef in you blog and her clicks really pulled me to make them.

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Manapparrai Murukku for ICC

We are travelling south to Tamil Nadu for this month's Indian Cooking Challenge. I am amazed by the variation of snacks we have across the country, with just a few changes in the ingredients and the method of preparation -- we end up with so many different type of snacks.

When I saw that Valli has a murukku recipe for this month, I was a little disappointed that we are going to make just another murukku recipe, but I was pleasantly surprised how just a few changes can make such a big difference. These murukkus are fried twice instead of just once in regular murukkus making them crunchy and very addictive.

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Gujarati Gathiya for Indian Cooking Challenge

For this month's Indian Cooking Challenge Valli and Vaishali wanted us to make a very famous Gujarati snack, Gathiya/ Gathia. Gujarati gathiya are very similar to janthikalu, but the texture is totally different. Gathiya are crispy and crunchy when you bite into them, but just melt in your mouth when eaten. 

To get that melt in the mouth texture, baking soda is dry roasted until slightly charred and then added to besan and other spices. Also generous amount of oil is added to the dough which helps to get the texture.

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Sago Murukku (Saggubiyyam/ Sabudana Murukulu)

Recipe Courtesy: My Dear friend Yagna Jyothy

Here's another crunchy and delicious snack recipe from Jyothy. Here's what she said on how and what made her make these murukkus for her daughter Raaga:"Cheese puffs are my husband's favorite junk food and he keeps them stocked at home much to my annoyance. Raaga has been munching on them lately and it got to a point where she has to have a handful of them EVERY evening while I make dinner. I decided that if she must eat junk, it might as well be something homemade- and somehow minimize the junk factor. Put in a call to my mom and got this recipe. Raaga has not eaten cheese puffs since I made these. My next goal would be to move from murkulu to fresh veggies for a pre-dinner snack, although that may just be my wishful thinking."

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Potato (Alu) Muruku

For the second day under "Traditional Dishes" theme, my mom made these crunchy and delicious Potato Muruku. I already posted 2 muruku recipes, one with dalia and the other traditional recipe with rice and urad dal. Adding potato gives the muruku nice crunch and you can definitely taste the potato.

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Muruku for Indian Cooking Challenge

We are making crunchy fried Murukus for this edition of Indian Cooking Challenge. These are probably the most time consuming, yet the tastiest muruku’s I’ve ever made.

I made a couple of changes to Srivalli’s recipe, not to the recipe, but the way I prepped my ingredients. After consulting with my mom: I soaked the rice the night before and shade dried it for half an hour before I grind it into a powder. I then used a sieve to sift the ground flour to get only the fine flour and blend and sifted it couple of times. According to my mom, the more you soak the rice the smoother & softer is the flour. Apart from that I followed the recipe to the T. Here is the recipe verbatim from Srivalli.

Ingredients:
Raw Rice - 4 cups
Urad Dal - 1 cup
Water - app 1/2 cup or more

For Seasoning:
Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
Sesame seeds- 1 tsp
Asafetida/ Hing - 1/2 tsp
Salt to taste
Butter - 75 gms (I used 4tbsp butter)

Method:

• Wash and drain the rice. Shade dry the Rice for 1/2 hr. (I soaked the rice overnight and shade dried in the morning for 30minutes to 1hour.)
  
• Dry roast the Urad dal to light brown. Allow it to cool.
  
• First grind rice into a fine flour, keep it aside. Then grind the urad dal to fine powder. (I sifted both the flours couple of times and used the finer flour for murukus)
  
• 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 dough which is little 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 it’s 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 happen!

Janthikalu - JFI#4:Flour

It is that time of the month again to make a dish for JFI (Jihva for Ingredients - Indira's brain child) and this time (fourth time to be exact), Santhi of Santhi's kitchen is hosting the event. Ingredient for month of August is Flour and Santhi is honoring all the flours under the sun . Though it sounds so simple, it is a tough one because of the wide range of recipes to choose from.
I made Janthikalu, which uses two kinds of flours - Rice flour and Chickpea flour (besan). Janthikalu are similar to Sev & Murukulu (Chakli) in terms of the ingredients and hardware used (Janthikala Mold).
I have to mention about my Janthikala Gottum (Mold). I asked my mom to send me one from India and she sent the one, she has been using for years (she replaced it with my Ammamma's mold). So this mold is kind of sentimental and I hope to take good care of it.

Ingredients:
Rice flour - 2 cups
Besan (Chickpea flour) - 1 cup
Sesame seeds - 2tsp
Chili powder - 1tsp
Cumin powder (jeera) - 1tsp
Ghee - 2tbsp (Can be replaced with hot oil)
Salt - to taste
Oil (vegetable, canola...) - for deep frying

Method:

• Mix the flours, sesame seeds, chili and cumin powders, ghee, salt together.
• Add just enough water to make a thick batter. Make sure that the batter is not too watery or too thick.
• Using a spoon, fill the mold with the batter.

• Heat oil till very hot. Press the mold over the hot oil and try to make concentric circles, so that the batter drops in the oil in circular coils.

• Fry till janthikalu turn golden brown. You might have to flip them once to fry uniformly on both sides.

• Remove with a slotted spoon on to a paper lined plate to remove any excess oil.

• Let cool and you can store in an air-tight container for upto 10days.