Alavanthipuram Murukku

Ingredients:

• Rice flour 6 cup
• Ural dal 1 cup
• Fried Gram half cup
• Butter 2 tsp
• Salt
• Omam (carom seeds) 1 tsp
• Jeera (Cumin) 1 tsp
• Ellu (Gingelly/Sesame seeds) 1tsp
• Perungayam (Asafoetida) 2 pinch
• Baking/cooking soda – 1 pinch

Procedure:

1. Prep:
   • Roast the urad dhal in a pan without oil (in medium fire) till it turns light brown. Turn off the heat and use the hot pan to warm up the fried gram.
   • Let the urad dhal and fried gram cool and then grind them into a fine powder
2. Mix the rice flour, urad dhal and fried gram powder together.
3. Add cooking soda to butter and mix thoroughly to make it smooth. Add to the flour mix and mix well
4. Add salt, omam (carom), jeera (cumin), ellu (gingelly/sesame) to the flour and mix well
5. Add perungayam (asafoetida) powder to water and mix with one portion of flour to make dough of required thick consistency
6. Squeeze the dough through a muruku press (extruder) to onto a oiled plate and then drop the dough into hot oil to fry it till it  turns golden brown. Use plain round pattern in the muruku press (extruder).
7. Repeat steps 5 & 6 to make tasty and crisp murukku.

Useful Tips:

• Divide the flour mix into four equal portions. Add water to one portion at a time and fry murukku. Repeat the process for other portions. If you add water to the entire flour and fry murukku over a long period of time, the flour may turn sour and fried murukku will turn hard, more brown and soak in more oil while frying.
• Fry one murukku to start with, check the taste and, if needed, add more salt or asafoetida
• Use high heat to start with, reduce to medium heat when half cooked and turn over the murukku. Return to high heat to start again.