Pasiparuppu Murukku

Normal murukku with besan and rice flour is addictive by itself. But with moong dal, I was very much tempted to try this recipe from Gayathri's site. The murukku was simply delicious and addictive. This keeps well for more than a week and we snacked on it several times a day.

Recipe source - Gayathri's cookspot
Ingredients
Rice Flour-2cups
Yellow Split Moong Dhal-1/2cup
Salt-to taste
Butter-1 1/2tbs
Sesame Seeds-3tbs
Pepper Powder-1tsp (adjust according to taste)
Oil-To Deep Fry

Method
1. Wash and soak dhal for 30 minutes.
2. Pressure cook with 1 cup of water for 2 minutes.
3. Open the lid and mash the dhal until mushy.
4. In a bowl, add rice flour, dhal mixture, salt, sesame seeds, pepper powder and butter and mix well.
5. You will get a crumbly mixture.
6. Boil water and add it little by little until you get a soft dough.
7. Use the single-star plate in the murukku press.
8. Fill it with the dough.
9. On the back of a ladle, press out murukku into a spiral.
10. Heat oil and add the pressed out murukku.
11. Fry until golden and the sizzling has stopped.
12. Transfer to a plate and allow it to cool.
13. Store in an air tight jar.

Verdict A must try in place of the regular murukku. It consumes a little more oil than the besan-rice flour variety.

Ribbon Pakoda

Diwali is our colourful festival of joy and giving. Everyone has a favourite aspect during this time of the year. A few love shopping for apparel, a few the fireworks, some love making the sweets and savory items, but most love binging on the goodies.

This is one simple and quick recipe for one of the popular savory items.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups gram flour (beesan or kadala maavu)
1/2 cup rice flour
1 tsp chili powder
Salt
2 tsp ghee
Water to make dough
Oil in kadai for deep frying

Method
Mix the besan and rice flour in a bowl. Add the chili powder and salt.

Add the ghee and make a crumbly mix. Add water to make a stiff dough.

Put into the murukku maker and directly press into heated oil.

Verdict This was a part of our festivities last Diwali and I am posting it in time for this year's festivities.

Arisi Vatthal (Rice Fryums)

In any Indian feast the first thing that children start eating is the papad. If there are fryums, the kids love it even better. Infact, it seems like they have an apetite only for the fryums and nothing else in the entire banana leaf.

These fryums and papads are usually grandma's passed on recipes in most families. I am lucky to be one of those. Granny to mom and mom to me. And my little girl shows signs of following in my footsteps too. So this is one yummy snack that we are not going to give up making. Infact, there is no dearth of bright sunny days in our part of the world. Even if it means waking up at 5AM to cook the rice and start making the murukkus by 7AM to take advantage of the sunlight during the day. Ofcourse we come away consuming more than our share of Vitamin D on such days. Still the crisp yummy fryums are worth it. 

Ingredients

Jeera/Cumin - 50 gm
Vella Ellu/White sesame seeds - 50 gm
Perungayam/Asafoetida - 1 tsp
Green chillies - 8 salt - to taste
Rice (Maavu arisi or pacchai arisi) - 8 cups (150 ml rice measuring cup)
Water - 20 cups (1 : 2.5, rice : water ratio)
Juice of 1 Lemon

Hot water - if needed


Utensils
Large Cooker
Large wooden ladle for mashing
Murukku press
Lots of clean plastic sheets


Method

Wash and clean the rice well. Place the rice and water with salt in the cooker. Grind green chilies with a little water and add the chili paste to the rice in the cooker. Add the asafoetida to the rice too. Close the cooker and boil well giving three whistles.

While the rice is cooking, clean the plastic sheets and spread them on the terrace.

Allow the pressure in the cooker to subside before opening. While the cooked rice is still hot, use a large wooden ladle to mash it well. Add the juice of lemon and keep mixing. The lemon is to make the fryums appear white instead of the pearly dull natural colour of the rice. Add the cumin and sesame seeds and mix well.

Check if the mashed rice mixture consistency is appropriate. Fill the murukku press with the mashed rice and try squeezing it. You should be able to make murukkus without much effort.

If not, add some hot water and mix until you reach the desired consistency.

Fill the murukku press and make long strips of murukku vattal or fryums on the plastic sheets.




The murukku press comes with a few options. The tiny holes are for idiyappam. The two flat rectangular holes are for ribbon pakoda. The star-shaped holes and the plain three holes are for murukku.

In Chennai you can use the star-shaped holes to make the murukku. You can fry them the same evening. But in Bangalore's unpredictable cloud cover, you might have to use the ribbon pakoda to make long strips that will dry quickly.

We generally do not worry about the shape. Since we will break it into 2-3 inch long strips after it has dried up.

As mentioned, make the murkkus on the sheets as early in the morning as possible. Allow them to dry out during the day.

If it is a bright sunny day, it mostly dries up by the end of the day. When you try to take it off the sheet, if it is hard and does not bend, it is almost dry. So take it off the sheet, break it into 3 inch long strips and dry it under the fan overnight. Place the strips back in the sunlight the next day to be extra sure that the fryums are totally dry.


These keep well for as long as a year or two, but mostly they are consumed faster than that ;). Fry them any time in hot oil and have as a snack or serve with rice in place of papad.

Verdict Time consuming, strenuous and ofcourse you end up with a bad tan, but if you take pride in home-made stuff then this is something you should definitely try out. 

Chickpea Stir Fry (Kondai Kadalai Sundal)

Sundal is the best evening snack, easy to make and totally healthy. Some pulses though require pre-soaking. This is never pre-planned in our kitchen. Whenever we decide to make channa masala for dinner, we keep some soaked channa aside and make the sundal.

For the Indian  recipes I use the 150 ml rice measuring cup as reference.

Ingredients:
Chick-peas or channa, soaked and boiled - 2 cups
Green chillies - 1

Tempering:
Mustard - 1/2 tsp
Urad dal - 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves - 4-5

Salt - to taste
Oil - 1/2 tbsp

Method:

Boil the chana until soft and edible. Drain most of the water and keep it asdie. A little moisture will not hurt.

Heat the oil in a kadai. Add the mustard, urad dal and curry leaves. When the mustart starts sputtering and urad dal turns golden brown, add the channa, green chillies and salt. Toss them around a few minutes and keep frying until the water evaporates completely.

Serve hot with tea/coffee.

Verdict: This is a good recipe to make for neivedyam too on festive occasions, in lieu of or in addition to the popular vadai. I made this for Shivrathri this year along with Ada pradamam.

Pav Bhaji (Without store-bought Pav Bhaji Masala)

Pav Bhaji is a regular in parties hosted at home for kids. I never use the store-bought pav-bhaji masala. I use a combination of home ground spices and get the desired flavour. Everyone loves the bhaji so much, that we have loads of leftover pav-bun, but run out of Bhaji easily. This recipe makes ample bhaji for 6 pav buns and just enough for 10 pav buns.

Ingredients:

Potatoes - 1 large or 2 medium
Cauliflower - 4-5 tiny flowerettes
Green peas - 1/4 cup
Carrots - 2 small
Onion - 1 medium
Tomato - 1 medium
Water - 1/4 cup

Masala:
Chili powder - 1 tsp
Cumin - 1/2 tsp
Thyme - 1/4 tsp
Garlic - 1 tsp
Ginger - 1 tsp
Salt - to taste
Turmeric powder - 1 pinch
 Butter - 1 tbsp

Method:
Dice the vegetables and drop them into the cooker. Add the spices and shake the cooker thoroughly to distribute them. Do not add the butter at this time. Soft cook the vegetables with the spices. Once the cooker has cooled down. Heat a kadai or saucepan, and drop the vegetables in the saucepan. When it comes a boil again, start mashing the vegetables with a pestle. When the vegetables are completely mashed with very tiny bits, add the butter and mix it thoroughly. You will see the Bhaji coming together at this stage. Turn off the flame when the bhaji is of a consistency that does not spread when placed in the plate. It should not be too dry either.
Serve hot with toasted pav buns. Pav-buns are usually cut in half and toasted with butter.

Verdict: Enjoy home-made pav-bhaji, and eat to your heart's content. Pav-buns can be made at home too if you are used to baking breads.I did not have a good experience with Pav-buns, as I had bad yeast. But I plan to try it sometime with good quality yeast.

Kaara Kozhukattai

In most cases, when the sweet kozhukattai is made, we might be left over with some rice flour dough and all the stuffing would have been consumed. What do we do with that excess dough? Kaara Kozhukattai is one simple savory starter, we make with the left over rice dough from the sweet kozhukattai. We do not require any pooranam (stuffing) for this. Some onions and chillies will do. Sounds simple doesn't it?

Ingredients:
Recipe for Rice dough from sweet kozhukattai

Assuming we have 1 cup of rice dough, use the following:
Onions - 1 medium, finely chopped
Green Chillies - 1, finely chopped 
Oil - for frying 
Salt - to taste
Tadka: 
Urad Dal - 1/2 tbsp
Mustard - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - 6-8
Oil - 1/2 tbsp

Method:
Heat oil in a frying pan; Add the chopped onions and chillies and fry until the onions turn transparent and a lovely shade of pink. Add the salt to the onion, chilly mix. Empty the onions and the chillies into the rice dough. Mix the dough well. Now the kaara kozhukattai dough is ready. Form small balls the kaara kozhukattai dough, the size of a lemon and keep aside.

Heat oil for the tadka. When hot enough, add the urad dal, mustard seeds and curry leaves. Once the mustard starts spluttering and the urad dal turns golden yellow, add the kozhukattai balls and fry until slightly browned on all sides.

Serve with either coriander or mint chutney. It tastes awesome by itself too.

Verdict: This can be made any day as a healthy tea-time snack for kids. Do try it sometime and let me know how it turns out.

Sakkarai Murukku

Murukkus are our very own Indian Savory items. How many different varieties there are and each one of them so crunchy and delicious. How about sugar coating this crunchy savory item and turning it into a sweet? Sounds good... Here goes the recipe:

Ingredients:

Besan (Gram flour) - 3/4 cup

Rice flour - 1/4 cup

Salt - 1/2 tsp

Ghee - Melted - 1 tbsp

Cold Water - to knead the dough

Oil for frying

For the sugar syrup:

Sugar - 1/2 cup

Water - 1 cup

Method:

Sift the Besan, rice flour and salt, until well mixed. Add cold water and knead the flour into a dough gently. Do not knead hard, else the murukku turns out hard and chewy. Add the heated ghee into the kneaded dough and keep aside.

In a heavy bottomed kadai, heat oil for a few minutes. Test the oil by just dropping a pinch of the dough, if it rises immediately and gets fried golden brown, then the oil is at the right temperature. If the dough stays at the bottom of the kadai for a few seconds wait for some more time before trying again. If the dough rises and gets browned too quickly, then lower the heat and wait before trying. 

Have the dough filled into a murukku kozhai and ready to go.

When the oil is ready, start piping out the murukku into the oil directly. Use long straight strokes across the kadai. When the murukku turns golden brown, then sieve it out of the kadai and leave it in a utensil to drain out the excess oil. Break the murukku into manageable length pieces. Once the dough is all consumed, get started with the sugar syrup.

Combine water and sugar in a heavy bottomed kadai and heat on medium flame. Slowly start stirring, until the syrup falls in a long string when poured from a height. We call it Kambi Padham in tamil. If your fingers can take the heat, take the syrup in a laddle, use your thumb and fore finger to pick up a pinch and try to stretch the liquid by pulling your fingers in opposite directions, if the syrup does not break and stretches into a thin line, then it is done. Else let it cook for some more time. 

When the syrup is ready,  drop the murukku bits into the syrup and working quickly, mix them well so the murukku is covered with syrup on most sides. 

Let it cool down and you can see the syrup crystallizing as it cools down. We call this process, "Paagu pookarthu". 

When you see the whitish crystallized sugar on the murukku, they are ready to be devoured.

Verdict: This one is a regular item at home for festivals. This is simple and quick and turns out very good.

Tip: If making large batches, do not make the dough at one go. Make a little dough, finish frying that, make the next batch of dough and so on. If the dough is mixed for too long, before it gets into the oil the murukkus do not turn out crisp. They become chewy and do not taste good.

Kaara Murukku

Here is the promised quick kaara murukku recipe.
Follow the general tips of the previous post on sakkarai murukku.

Ingredients:

Besan (gram flour) - 3/4 cup

Rice flour - 1/4 cup

Asafoetida - 1/4 tsp

Cumin powder - 1 tsp

Chilli powder - 1 tbsp

Salt - to taste

Ghee (melted) - 1 tbsp

Water to make the dough

Oil for frying.

Method:

Mix the besan and rice flour well.

Add the asafoetida, cumin, chilli powder and salt and mix well. Add water mix with the fingertips, without working the dough too hard. Finally add the melted ghee and blend in with the dough. 

Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed kadai and use the murukku pizhi to form long strands of murukku. Fry until golden brown and drain the excess oil in a utensil or with blotting paper. Break the long strands into shorter manageable ones. Hot spicy murukkus are ready to be devoured with tea/coffee.

Verdict: These are very quick to make and turns out quite tasty. For visitors arriving with short notice making these turns out to be a better option than buying anything outside.