Murukku in tamil and chakli in kannada and marathi and chakri in gujarati is very popular for its different shapes and crisp fried taste. It is also handy due to its storable convenience. Nowadays, even in india, families prefer to get them from savoury shops to distribute for deepavali and even to send abroad to their children.

Murukku – as a verb in tamil means ‘to twist’. The dough made of rice flour and urad dal flour(dehusked black gram) is twisted and swirled to be made into round shapes, and hence the name! There are also different kinds of murukkus –

• thenkuzhal – plain murukku
• magizhambu or mullu murukku – murukku with a thorny sharp texture
• kai murukku – hand twisted murukku
• vennai murukku – butter murukku

and many more with a little variation like ribbon pakoda, kara sev and so on.

Murukkus can be magical for first timers – especially first time makers. Be it the ones made by the murukku maker, or the hand-made kai-murukkus, making murukku is an art by itself. Tasting, without knowing when to stop can be another art worth mentioning! Not getting into any gender bias, boys seem to fare better in this art! Sitting with aachi and amma to see the murukkus being made by hand on plastic sheets or the murukku maker ones directly into oil with elegant expertise, I have experienced the joy of viewing, tasting and once in a while trying to make some too.

They are quite easy to make – with the murukku maker and some patience – you can surprise your family and yourself too with these excellent crispies.  The rice flour used to be prepared by a long process of soaking raw rice, then drying them in a clean white cloth in a shady place at home, and later milled. With easily available rice flour in the indian markets abroad, this has become easier, though nothing to match the home-made rice flour. Of course, the urad flour is not available so easily in the markets – that has to be done at home. I have always used the flours sent by amma, this time I thought I would try making urad flour at home but had the milled rice flour from chennai!  Making urad flour was not at all a tedious one!

Deepavali snacks are incomplete without these different kinds of murukkus.

 

Making Murukku

 

 

Ingredients (makes approximately 15 murukkus)

• rice flour – 2 cups
• urad flour – 1/2 cup
• white/black sesame seeds – 1 tsp (cumin seeds can be used instead of sesame seeds)
• salt – as needed
• oil – for frying

Method of Preparation

Making Urad flour

1. Heat a hard bottomed vessel or kadai
2. Dry roast ulundham paruppu/urad dal – dehusked black gram till golden brown
3. Grind to a fine powder in a blender
4. Sieve it and keep aside.

Note: 100 gms urad dal gives 100 gms urad flour

Making dough

1. Sieve rice flour and urad flour
2. Soak salt in very little and let it dissolve. This helps in even distribution of salt
3. Add dissolved salt, sesame or cumin seeds and enough water to flour mixture and make a smooth dough
4. The dough should neither be too tight nor too loose. 

Making murkku

1. Take one portion of dough and fill it inside the cylindrical container of the murukku maker

2. Close it with the single holed disc

 

3. Press into medium size murukkus on an aluminium foil sheet or any oiled plate

 

4. I used a greased plate and used a dosai thiruppi – ladle used to turn the dosais, to take it out and drop in the oil

 

5. Take care to drop the murukkus gently in the oil

6. Fry till golden brown

7. Remove in kitchen tissues to absorb excess oil

8. Let them cool and store in an air-tight container.