Butter Murukku

Butter murukku was the savoury at home for this Diwali. After some research I found that this is relatively an easy thing to attempt and not that it came out mind blowing. I learnt that sweets and savoury making is not just about the formula and procedure like baking, it is also about experience. What I missed this time was the texture and freshness of the rice flour; depending on their dryness and type of rice used the rice flour gets its traits which result in crispness, colour of the savoury, flavour, oil absorbing nature and stuff like that. I don't think there is any metric to determine these; we just got to use the experience or instincts. Usually what wise people do is try a small batch first and then repeat for the rest, so that there is room for correction if necessary. Oh, too much of gyan just because mine was screwed a bit (It was slightly hard); don’t worry; sometimes you just crack it at the first go. However, I’ve given modified measures here which finally rendered me good results.

Ingredients:

1. Rice flour - 4 cups

2. Roasted-gram flour - 1 cup

3. Urad dal flour - 1/2 cup

4. Butter - 2 tbsp

5. Salt as per taste

6. Carom seeds- 1 tsp

7. Sesame seeds - 1 tbsp

8. Oil for deep frying

Method:

Step 1: Sieve and mix all the flours in a mixing bowl, add salt, carom seeds, sesame seeds, softened butter, a tbsp of hot oil and mix well thoroughly. Then add warm water gradually and mix to make a soft dough. Wrap it in a muslin cloth and leave for 10 minutes.

Step 2: Heat oil in a deep pan; and in parallel with the help of murukku mold squeeze circular swirls with the desired size/shape/ number of holes in mold.

Step 3: When the oil in hot, simmer the heat and slide in the swirls very delicately and carefully into it. Once it  browns on one side, flip to the other side. Adjust  heat depending on the color you want and make sure it is cooked well.

TIPS:

* Usual mistakes in murkkus are that they turn out very dark in color or or they are brittle that they don't take the swirl shape or they are soft or they are too hard to bite or sometimes they absorb lot of oil. For each of these experienced people give suggestions and by that I mean I have not much idea :)