Thenkuzhal is a famous crispy South Indian snack made of Rice flour and lentil flour (black gram) enjoyed not only during festival season (Diwali and Krishna jayanthi) but also year round. Countless have been the times when my mom on a regular day would fry them up in batches and store in a huge air tight (stainless steel) container. The plan would be to make them enough to last a month, but needless to say, it used to get over within a week ( or two max) with all of us sneaking one with every single visit to the kitchen :). Simple to make, extremely crunchy and addictive.
Ingredients
3 cups Rice Flour (sifted)
1 cup Urad Dal flour (sifted)
2 tbsp Butter, melted
2 tsp Cumin Seeds (See Tips)
1/4 tsp Asafoetida
Salt to taste
Tips
Instead of Cumin, you can use Sesame seeds. My mother mentions that some proportions use 4 cups rice flour to 1 cup urad flour. That work great too.
Method
1. In a shallow pan , add oil for deep frying. Mix all the dry ingredients together.
2. Add the butter and water little by little
3. until the dough is pliable. - Nor too tight nor loose. Also make sure to fry them as soon you prepare the dough. This will help to avoid oil retention.
4. Take the Murukku press and use the plate that has 3 smooth round holes in it.
5. Drop a lemon size dough in it.
6. You can now deep fry it in 2 ways. One safe way - esp. for beginners - would be to press the dough in a circular motion on top of a ladle.
7. Now place the ladle inside the hot oil. Keep the flame Med-high. Too hot will burn the outside and too low will make these retain lots of oil.
8. There will be lots of bubbling actions and in few seconds you will find that shaking the ladle a little will help to dislodge the dough into the oil. You can otherwise grease the ladle a little for the first murukku to help it to slide smoothly into the oil.
9. Once the hissing and bubbling action subsides, you know the thenkuzhal murukku is done. Remove and set aside on a paper towel. Do not crowd them while frying. Add 1-2 at a time (or couple more depending on the size of your murukku and vessel used for deep frying). Too many will bring down the temperature of the oil making the thenkuzhal soggy.
10. The other method that my mother usually follows, is to place the filled murukku press right on top of the hot oil,
11. and squeeze the dough in a circular motion right on top of it. I would advise the beginners to avoid this since there is also a risk of oil bubbling out of the vessel if you press down too much dough into it. Also another reason is you might not make neat rounds (although taste wise it really doesn't matter if its in bunches or separated ).
12. Turn it until its light golden yellow. I personally prefer the cream color while the better half likes it dark (like dark red!!!). I refuse to deep fry until its get that deep red, hence fry mid way to reddish yellow! But traditionally you will find Thenkuzhals are mostly light creamy yellow.
