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Muruku
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Jantikalu or Murukku Recipe

Jantikalu or Muruku are traditional savories prepared during festivals. These Murukkus are an authentic style of South Indian cuisine.
Course Snacks
Cuisine South Indian
By Cook Method Deep Fried
Occasion Deepavali, Travel Food
By Diet Kid Friendly
Dish Type Festival Savories
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 40 minutes
Author Srivalli

Equipment

  • Muruku / Chakli Press
  • Kadai

Ingredients

For the Dough

  • 4 cups Raw Rice
  • 1 cup Urad Dal
  • 1/2 cup Water or more as needed

For Seasoning

  • 1 tsp Cumin Seeds
  • 1 tsp Sesame Seeds white
  • 1/2 tsp Asafoetida / Hing
  • 75 gms Butter unsalted
  • Salt to taste
  • Cooking Oil for deep frying

Instructions

  • 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 a rice mill, else use your mixer 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. Refer this post for making Rice flour at home.
  • 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 murukku, 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 cooking oil enough to deep fry. Once the cooking 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 or slotted spoon 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 an airtight container.
  • This normally stays good for weeks, provided you forget about these which hardly happens!

Notes

  1. Things to remember for not making your murukku break into pieces. It's important to roast the Urad dal to just brown and not very brown.
  2. Rice used should have some starch to hold the shape, else it might crumble down.
  3. Adding too much butter can also result in the fried murukkus to break. You can start with half and slowly increase by feeling the dough. The dough with the right amount of butter will be soft but not very soft.
  4. If you don't have a murukku aachu, you can use a plastic cover/ zip lock cover with a thin hole to press out the dough or even icing bags with different heads can be thought of.
Lataji tried out two different methods, both seems to have turned out well                       1 heaped cup of rice (to make it 250grams of rice)
1/4 cup (level) urad dhal.
1 tablespoon butter
yielded 420 grams murukku. For Vegan option, use this instruction.
For 1 cup (240 ml), rice flour urad dhal flour mix if you add 1 tablespoon vegetable margarine/dalda it replaces butter in a vegan version. We can add hot oil too, a little more than 1 tablespoon will be required.
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