Thenkuzhal Murukku

I give up! Not all regional food can be translated to English or any other language. Even if we do, it would not do full justice to the food. One such Tamil snack is ‘Then-kuzh-al’. This is made a festive food as it requires deep frying and not every day you would like to deep fry them. But if you do not mind the frying process, you can even enjoy them as your evening snack. No one can ever stop you from that.And if you love crispy snacks, you should totally try this one.The picture might not be attractive but the taste sure is!

There are gazillion varieties of murukkus(like this mullumurukku that I posted sometime back). One simple change in each of the recipe will give huge difference and variation in taste.The process is the same for all - prepare the dough, insert the dough to the murukku maker, press them to hot oil for deep frying! The only difference is in the dough and the attachment you choose for your murukku maker.

Ingredients:

Rice Flour – 4 cups

Urad Flour – 1 cup

Melted Butter or ghee – 2 tsp

Salt – as needed

Asafoetida – ¼ tsp

Cumin seeds (optional) – 2 tsp

                                                                      

Preparation:

• Mix rice flour, urad flour, salt and asafoetida, cumin seeds (if using) in a mixing bowl.
• Add butter/melted ghee and gently massage the flour.
• Make a ‘not too hard/not too soft’ dough adding water little by little.
• Heat the oil in a pan for deep frying.

Method:

1. You would need a murukku press/chakli maker with smooth medium sized holes attachment. Refer below:

Check out more information on this gadget here

    2. Insert a lemon sized dough to the murukku maker.

    3.  Make sure the oil is hot (Drop a pea sized batter to the oil and the batter should come up to the surface immediately)

    4.  Press the dough in spirals into the hot oil.

    5.  Flip the sides for uniform cooking until the oil bubbles subsides.

    6.  Transfer them to paper towel and let it cool.

Tips

1. The murukku can change color if the dough is resting for a long time, so prepare the dough in batches.

2.If you are not comfortable pressing the dough directly to hot oil, refer the tips of mullu murukku where you can press them to a greased ladle and then transfer it to the hot oil.

Should you have any issues with the murukku maker, you know what to do : leave us your question in the comment below and I promise we will get back to you.