A Recipe for Murukku To Celebrate Deepavali
P.S. Please forgive the molds that I used to shape this - I mean no ill intent!
Happy Deepavali everyone! I thought of making murukkus today because I was reading Vasunthara’s story on Deepavali for the planner. She wrote about how helping her grandmother out with the frying of a variety of murukkus was one of her fondest memories growing up. “As Deepavali is celebrated as a symbol of light, goodness and knowledge triumphing over darkness, evil and ignorance, the lighting of the fire and heating of oil for frying the murukkus is significant,” she writes.
Wex absolutely loves murukku but I’ve been putting it off because we don’t have the right press to shape them the traditional way. I tried a few different methods to shape them without the press and ended up pressing small balls of dough into my mooncake mold to get a pretty imprint. Please forgive me for using such a traditional Chinese mold to shape such a culturally significant Indian food item - I mean no ill intent :-) I just had to find a way to shape them in a way that didn’t look too bad. The following recipe makes about 13-14 murukkus, and it was gone pretty quickly so I’d say it feeds two. 😜
Murukku
40g urad/urid dal (split black lentils)
150g rice flour, preferably the Indian variety that is specifically for making murukkus
1 teaspoon sesame seeds
1/2 teaspoon ajwain
3/4-1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon red chili powder
1/8 teaspoon asafoetida
40g hot ghee
About 75-100g water
Toast the urad dal in a pan until light golden but not browned. Allow to cool before grinding into a flour.
Combine the urad dal flour, rice flour, sesame seeds, ajwain, salt, red chili powder and asafoetida in a bowl.
Add the hot ghee into the flour mixture, mixing it up with your fingers to form a mixture that resembles breadcrumbs. Adding hot ghee keeps the murukku crispy and flaky. Some cooks choose to add less ghee to their murukkus.
Add the water gradually, kneading the dough until you form a mixture that is not sticky but not dry either. You might not use all the water/ require more water - it really depends on the rice flour you’re using.
Shape, using a murukku press preferably. (P.S. I shaped them as thin wafer-thin ‘cookies’ using my mooncake molds)
Heat oil to 190C. Test the temperature of the oil by dropping a small piece of dough - if it sinks, it is too cold. If it floats steadily, it is perfect.
Add the murukkus and deep fry until light golden.
Drain on kitchen towels before transferring to airtight containers.