I am combining Diwali and blog hop together with two recipes, one being the sweet and the other savory snack. This week I am paired with Archana of
"The Mad Scientist's Kitchen" who has a beautiful space full of yummy and mouthwatering recipes. I would like to thank again Radhika of
"Tickling Palates" for introducing me to all the blogger friends and to try their recipes my own way.
OK, now lets start with the sweet recipe......
SUNNUNDALU ( Urad Dal Ladoo)
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Ingredients:
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3 cups Urad Dal (I used the split ones, you can also use whole)
3 1/2 cups Sugar
1/2 tsp Cardamom powder
3/4 - 1 cup Ghee (Clarified Butter)
Method:
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1. In a large pan dry roast urad dal in medium flame until it turns very slight brown color or when you bite into a dal, it should not taste raw.
2. Allow the dal to come to room temperature.
3. Now in a mixer add the dal and powder it and make sure there is no very coarse grains of the dal.
4. Now transfer it to a large mixing bowl, add the sugar (you can powder the sugar along with the dal if you want - I did not powder so as to make the ladoo with a crunchy texture, else it will stick in your mouth).
5. Now add the cardamom powder mix well, add ghee slowly until you can make a ball (ladoo) out of the dal powder.
6. Now make small balls out of the dal, sugar and ghee mixture and allow it to rest for minutes and enjoy! (I made around 55 ladoo out of this quantity).
Now that you have sweet taste...lets balance it with a Savory Snack...............
MURUKKULU or JANTHIKALU (Gram and Rice Flour Savory Crackers)
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Ingredients:
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This proportion is only for a small amount...you can increase the quantity as per your required amount of the Murukkulu.
I got this recipe from one of the blogger friends of
"Rak's Kitchen", I love all her recipes and drool over her pictorials.....as soon as I saw this savory snack....I bookmarked it to make it as diwali snack....so here is the recipe. I did not get enough time to do a step by step pitorials...so if you need one you can go to her blog. I really would like to thank her for sharing this recipe. I did minor changes to her recipe.
Ingredients:
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1 cup Gram Flour (Besan) heaped
3/4 cup Rice flour
2 tbsp Melted Butter
1/8 tsp Turmeric powder
1/8 thsp Asafoetida
1 tsp Cumin seeds (coarsely ground)
2 tsp Black Peppercorns (coarsely ground)
Salt as needed
Water as needed
Oil for deep frying.
Method:
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1. In a spice mixer add cumin and peppercorns and coarsely grind them and keep it aside.
2. In a large mixing bowl, sieve besan so as to remove the lumps, add rice flour, asafoetida, salt, turmeric powder and the crushed cumin and pepper, mix well.
3. Now add the melted butter and mix again so that the entire flour mixture is little soft and crumbly.
4. Now add water little by little and make a dough which is firm enough so that when you form a ball it should not have cracks or should not be dry.
5. Now in a kadai add oil and heat it on a medium flame.
6. Now take a murukku press with a star hole (you can use any shape, make sure the hole is big enough so that the cumin or pepper corns don't get stuck while pressing).
7. Now fill part of the dough into the murukku press, and now test whether the oil is hot enough....to do that you need to drop a small piece of the dough into the oil, if it rises as soon as you put it then the oil if ready, else if it sinks without any bubbles then you need to wait.
8. Now press the murukku press and make big circles, about two. Make sure that you do not overcrowd the oil.
9. Now cook it until it turns golden brown flipping once both sides for about 7-8 mins.
10. Now remove the murukkulu into a plate lined with paper towel to absorb the extra oil.
11. After it cools I broke into bite size pieces and we can store it in a zip lock bag or into a air tight container lined with paper towel, so that it will absorb all the moisture.
