Kai Murukku ~Amma's Special

For so many years, murukku meant only the kaimurukku for me. We called murukku only  that. Later on, I realised its a more general way of referring murukku, muthuswarams or thenkuzhal...Okay, you got the drift. When I posted this month's ICC, I had mentioned about kai murukku. While on twitter, Aparna asked me about the recipe for the murukku and I promised her I shall post it soon. These pics have been lying in drafts for more than 4 months. Thanks to Aparna, that it finally came to the light of blogosphere. Before you all jump to the conclusion that I an expert on this, let me confess, I am merely documenting my Amma's recipe. It was she who did this when she was here. To be frank, I haven't made any serious attempts on this regard.

And my Amma is an expert and unfortunately me and my sister doesn't seem to inherit that genes.

Things to keep ready

Fresh rice flour is used for making murukku. I am not sure how best result you might get with store bought flour. Since I have seen only made with fresh flour. As with all Indian  avories, this recipe also requires you to soak the raw rice for 1 hour. Drain and shade dry. Then pound in the mixer grinder or near by flour mill. Seive the flour.

Split urad dal is to be roasted on low fire till it is pink. Cool and powder. Sieve to get fine powder. Ura dal flour can be prepared a day ahead or so.

Solid hing gives a better flavor than the powdered ones. If using solid hing,soak it in warm water for half an hour. If hing powder is used, then also dissolve it in the water.

The proportion of rice flour :urad dal powder is 7: 1. Measure using the same cup. Its not necessary that you use the standard measuring cup. Any size cup can be used provided you measure both the ingredients with the same cup. Quantity of the rest of the ingredients are indicative. So adjust according to the size of the measuring cup you use.

Now on to the recipe,

Ingredients

7 cups of fine raw rice flour

1 cup of roastedd and powdered urad dal

Butter - 3 tblspn

Jeera/Cumin -1 tblspn

Hing -

Salt

Water to make the dough

Oil to deep fry

Method

Measure rice flour and urad dal powder into a wide vessel. Add butter, jeera . Dissolve the salt in the hing water. Add the hing,salt water. Mix the ingredients well. Add water to make  pliable dough. When making in large quantities, its ideal to prepare the dough in batches.

Spread a cotton cloth. Take a lemon sized dough in your hand and start making murukku. I should have taken a video but I missed. I shall surely do that next time. You can apply some coconut oil on your hands. This will help to make the swirls with out breaking.

Leave it for 15 minutes to dry on the cloth, before you deep fry. Meanwhile heat oil in a  kadai. Slowly lift the murukku from the cloth using a flat spatula (Dosa thiruppi) and transfer to a plate. Slowly slide them into oil. When one side is fried, flip with a slotted spoon. When both sides are cooked, it will have a golder color. And also the sizzling of the oil around the murukku ceases.

Drain and when cool, store in airtight containers.

These are crunchy but not the melt in your mouth kind. If you add more butter, it will drink more oil also, thought it might not be very hard.

Golu pics from Mumbai

Our Aunt, Lalitha  at Mumbai, has sent in her golu pics along with snaps of  few prasadoms for my blog. She is a great cook  herself. She to enjoys cooking variety of recipes. Aunty is involved in a Bhajan group and is the active co-ordinator. If only she had some more time for herself, I am sure she would have started a food blog. She is very much interested in my blog and keeps telling that she will click and send few recipes for mine. Her busy schedule doesn't make it happen. And even Uncle and their son have promised me some recipes for my blog.  So enjoy the pictures for now.

Paal Payasam and Vadai for Saraswathy Poojai

Day ~9 Saraswathy Pooja

We keep the books on 8th day night for pooja. Though pooja for the books are done on 9th day morning. It is customary to make paal payasam and Vadai for nivedhyam. As kids, we used to look forward to this day, since this was the only day, when we are asked not to study. When our books are kept for pooja, we never used to read even newspaper or any thing on that regard.

Paal Payasam

Instead of doing the traditional way of making, I have opted the easier route, which results in equally good payasam. So why slog extra time in the kitchen. Let me tell you, this method works good for small quanitities. Let me give the recipe first

Ingredients

Broken raw matta/brown rice - 1/4 cup

Milk - 1 litre

Sugar -1 1/4 cup (Can reduce to 1 cup if you want don't want it to be too sweet)

Butter - A teaspoon (optional)

Wash the rice and add all the ingredients in a cooker. Make sure the ingredients come only to 1/4 of the cooker capacity. Later, on cooking, the milk will rise and it will start coming out of the steam vent. This is the reason I said the method suits only to small quanitities. I used my 5 litres cooker. Still during the last few minutes, milk came out through the vent on the top. After first whistle, set the flame to the lowest level. Let it cook for 20 minutes. Switch off the gas and leave it for another 30 minutes. Open the cooker to find creamy, pinkish pal payasam. Add a dab of butter if desired. I don't usually add cardamom powder since I like to retain the creamy milk flavor.

Isn't it easy to cook this way? And doesn't it look like the famous Ambalapuzha Palpayasam. As I have mentioned in my earlier post, husband doesn't eat this payasam. So its the only occassion that I make this payasam.

Vadai

I have posted the recipe earlier.