Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Jantikalu for ICC

This month's recipe for the Indian Cooking Challenge announced by Srivalli and tried by all the members was the jantikalu or murukku famous South Indian savouries. With the festival season upon us, all of us geared ourselves to try it out. Though I do this regularly to indulge my family, replicating the given recipe was fun.
Now, for the recipe given by Srivalli :



Ingredients Needed:
Raw Rice - 4cups
Urad Dal - 1 cup
Water - app 1/2 cup or more
For Seasoning:
Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
Sesame seeds- 1 tsp
Asafoetida/ Hing - 1/2 tsp
Salt to taste
Butter - 75 gms
Method to prepare:
Wash and drain the rice. Dry the rice spread on a cloth in shade for 1/2 hr.
Dry roast the urad dhal to light brown. Allow it to cool.
If you are using more quantity, you can get it ground in rice mill, else use your mixie to grind both rice and urad dhal.
First grind rice into a fine flour, sieve, repeat until a very fine flour is achieved.
Spread the flour on sheets of paper until required.
Ideally the murukkus taste good if done with this moist flour immediately or it should have dried thoroughly in hot sun and stored.
Similarly grind the roasted urad dal to fine powder.
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 variety, mix it in water, make sure it is dissolved before adding to the flour. If its not dissolved properly, when deep frying the muruku, there are chances for the asafoetida to burst due to presence of solid particles.
Mix the asafoetida to the flour and finally add the butter.Rub the butter in gently and mix the flours to blend well.
Gather everything well and you will get more of a crumbling mixture.
Now gradually add water and knead a dough which is little more softer than the puri dough.
Heat a kadai with oil enough to deep fry.
Once the oil is hot enough, simmer to low flame.
Take the Muruku achchu, 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 flame or press over a paper 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.
Remove to a kitchen paper and store it in a air tight container.



The recipe given by Srivalli is similar to what many of my cookbooks have given. But I usually use 1 cup of urad dhal to 5 cups of raw rice as given by my aunt. Also we are an indulgent family that we use more butter to get melt-in-the-mouth murukkus. But too much butter will make the murukku oily and also may not hold shape rendering them to break. So butter should be optimum, neither too less or too much.
Since we are only two in the family, I have tried the recipe with quarter of the above quantity.
My cup is 240ml standard cup, which while measured heaped weighed 250grams of raw rice. I used split urad dhal levelled in 1/4 cup measure and butter 2 tablespoons. With this I achieved 420 grams of murukkus.
Hope you will all enjoy making these murukkus for the upcoming festive season.







30 comments:

  1. Wow.. crispy yummy murukku lata..!

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  2. Nice post,tha last paragraph is so true and will be useful
    to many!!

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  3. murruku looks yummy and nothing can beat the taste and colur if the flour is made by soaking rice. I always put 6 cups of rice for 1 cup of urad dal as told by my MIL. Supera irrukum.
    any way nice attempt.Advanced wishes for diwali

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  4. looks very crispy...i love the pictures..

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  5. Looks perfect :) I love this muruku so much and we used to call it butter muruku. :)

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  6. I enjoyed making and having this crispies..Looks great..

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  7. Akka, yours looks so crisp and ready to melt-in-the-mouth. Seeing yours, next time,I will try with thenkuzhal achu .

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  8. Hi,yummy murukku and my first visit to your blog a neat and interesting one and will continue my visits

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  9. crispy and mouthwatering murrukku.

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  10. perfect snack for the festive season. yours look very nice. unfortunatley i could not participate in this month's challenge too. :-(

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  11. wow crispy murukku, nice blog will come back again

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  12. Crispy muruku.looks yummy.Ur Navratri Golu is beautiful.

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  13. Have come out so good, very crispy & delicious.

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  14. Looks nice and crispy Lata... should appreciate u doing them even when busy with the shifting work :)

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  15. they look perfect..i see murukkus everywhere and am drooling. not good while thinking about losing weight :)

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  16. Lovely muruku lata,i had a doubt of using the round design but i saw quite a few using the round design.

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  17. Yummy murukus!!!
    Thank you lata for visiting my blog.
    picture posting looks great, all steps in one frame.

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  18. I think I am going to move to Ghana... murukku looks so crisp ... I can keep eating :)

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  19. Thank you all!I say, the admiration is mutual :) Padma, I made these before the moving.Indhu that's a great idea, I can have a taste of all those goodies from you, and we can exchange books, Ha what an indulging thought!

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  20. I think if I had used the Thenkuzhal press, it might have been better. Yours look awesome. Thanks for dropping by my blog.

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  21. Thats looking so perfect both color and texture.

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  22. Jantikalu came out perfect. looks absolutely tempting and delicious!!

    Thanks for dropping by!! Thank you so much for passing one of my recipes to your friend. So nice of you!! I am so glad that your friend liked it :)

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  23. wow crisy looking murukus looks so tempting yummmmmmmmmm.

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  24. First time here...:-) murukku looks very crispy..nice pics too :-)

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  25. Hi Lata,
    I just gave you a bear hug
    Check this link http://www.vidyasrecipes.com/2009/10/giant-bear-hug.html

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  26. U ve made it perfectly and lovely color!

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  27. hi dear, an award is waiting for you in my blog. pls check this link: http://curriesandspices.blogspot.com/2009/10/award-time.html
    I thought I had mentioned to you earlier, but somehow missed it! Sorry!
    Happy cooking!!

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Hello,
Welcome and thank you for taking time to drop by.
I appreciate your valuable comments and tips.
I sincerely hope to improve with them.
Hope we shall interact often.
Thanks once again,
Lata Raja.