Muruku / Jantikalu

When I think of muruku I remember Deepavali. Thats the only time of the year my mom used to make this delicacy. I should confess that I couldn't get the taste of her preparation when I make it . Might be it's due to the difference in the rice flour. I used a store bougt one and my mom used to soak raw rice, dry it in shade and then grind it along with roasted urid dhal. Even the ground flour smelled too good. Rajender likes this snack. So I made it few days back.  I wanted to post it on this special occassion of Ugadi. I should also mention about my mom-in-law in this post. She is very talented in preparing snacks and sweets. Even the neighbours seek her help for making snacks. When my mom-in-law prepares adhirasam / arisil there will be many of her friends present. It will be like a festival. They easily prepare hundreds of arisil a day. There will be lots of interesting chatting going on and at the same time their hands will be working very artistically. I really admire my mom-in-law. Once I tried making adhirasam myself. I thought being her daughter-in-law I should also be good in making snacks and sweets . So one fine day I told Rajender, I am going to prepare arisil. He looked at me and said Manju no need. Why do you want to trouble yourself? (the hidden meaning is please do not trouble me by dumping all the extra works on me!!! ). I replied 'no, no I have seen athamma prepare it. Thats very easy. Get ready to eat wonderful arisil'. I worked on it very hard. Even the rice flour when mixed with jaggery syrup tasted superb. I am in an elated state of mind till I dropped the prepared dough in oil. All my happiness vanished in a second. The prepared dough broke into pieces (not even into big pieces). And there ended my story of making adhirasam. But I am sure I will be as proficient as my mom-in-law in making adhirasam one day . So coming back to the muruku story, I prepared muruku using store bought rice flour. It tasted good but not as good as my mom's or mother-in-law's . So here comes the recipe for it:

Ingredients

Rice flour-3 cups

Urid dhal flour- 1/2 cup

Seasame seeds- 2 tbspns

A pinch of asafoetida

Salt to taste and oil

Method

Dry roast a cup of urid dhal til they become slightly brown. Then grind them into a fine powder using mixier grinder. Now mix the ground urid dhal flour with rice flour. Then add seasame seeds, asafoetida and salt to the flour mixture. Prepare the dough by adding water to the mixture stirring continuously with a spatula. Be careful when adding water. You must be able to make a smooth dough out of it, the dough should not be watery.  Now take the muruku press and add enough dough into it. Then press it and at the same time circle your hand so that you get shapes as shown in the picture. Finally deep fry the prepared dough in enough oil. Tasty, crispy muruku will be ready.

Taste enhancing tipe for this recipe:  The amount of water you add to the flour in making the dough is very important. The dough should not be very dry. If it is dry the muruku will not have a proper shape. When you drop them in oil they will break into pieces. When it is too watery you cannot use them in muruku press. Do not overcrowd the pan when frying. If you overcrowd the pan you will loose the crispiness because of the drop in oil temperature. The dough should  prepared just before you are ready to make muruku. If you prepare the dough earlier the muruku will imbibe more oil. Happy cooking!!!