Murukku

Rice and urad flour piped into coils, and the name means twisting.

Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains dairy (butter).

Ingredients

• 350 g rice flour
• 100 g urad dal flour
• 2 tablespoons sesame seeds
• 1 teaspoon asafoetida
• 1 teaspoon chilli powder
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 3 tablespoons butter, softened
• about 280 ml water
• oil for deep frying

Method

1. RICE AND URAD FLOUR PIPED INTO COILS, AND THE NAME MEANS TWISTING. Its article gives both: murukku IS TYPICALLY MADE FROM RICE FLOUR AND URAD DAL FLOUR, mixed with water, salt, chilli powder, asafoetida AND EITHER SESAME SEEDS OR CUMIN SEEDS, and the dough IS SHAPED INTO SPIRAL OR COIL SHAPES. The etymology is the instruction: MURUKKU means TWISTING IN TAMIL AND REFERS TO ITS SHAPE.
2. THE URAD FLOUR IS WHAT MAKES IT SHORT RATHER THAN HARD. Rice flour alone fries to something closer to a cracker. A hundred grams in four hundred and fifty is enough to make it snap and crumble instead of splintering.
3. AND ITS ARTICLE NAMES THE NEAR RELATIVE, WHICH SETTLES A COMMON CONFUSION. CHAKLI IS A SIMILAR INDIAN DISH, TYPICALLY MADE WITH AN ADDITIONAL INGREDIENT, CHICKPEA FLOUR. So the same coil with besan in it has another name, and this one does not have besan.
4. TOAST THE FLOURS DRY BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE. Five minutes each in a dry pan over a low heat, moving constantly, until they smell warm and nutty but take no colour. Raw rice flour tastes of nothing and absorbs unpredictably.
5. RUB THE BUTTER IN, THEN BRING IT TOGETHER WITH HOT WATER. Three tablespoons rubbed through the dry flours first. Then the water in stages to a dough just soft enough to push through a press -- stiffer than a pastry, softer than a biscuit dough.
6. PRESS IT STRAIGHT INTO THE OIL, OR ONTO PAPER FIRST. A murukku press with the star plate, squeezed in a spiral of three turns. Onto greased paper is easier for the first few: they can be slid off into the oil without losing their shape.
7. FRY AT A MEDIUM HEAT UNTIL THE HISSING STOPS. Four or five minutes, turning once. The sound is the timer: while there is water left in the dough it fizzes, and silence means it is dry through. Taken out while it still hisses, the middle stays soft.
8. COOL THEM COMPLETELY BEFORE THEY GO IN A TIN. They crisp as they cool, and warm ones steam each other soft. Kept airtight they last a fortnight.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under India · All recipes