Thenkuzhal Murukku, Savory Snack With Rice Flour

          Thenkuzhal Murukku, second savory snack that I made for this Diwali along with the Kara Boondi. This is another simple and easy one that even beginners can try out, just needs a few ingredients that are commonly available and of course a Murukku maker. The Murukku maker comes with about a dozen plates or blades for making different shapes of murukkus ( just like a cookie cutter ). The plate that we use for this, is the one with 3 holes, but I had misplaced it somewhere, so I used the one with 5 holes. The murukkus are not spicy but very flavorful from the cumin seeds and asafoetida, crunchy and delicious snack..

Need To Have

• Rice Flour - 1 cup
• Roasted Urad Dal Flour - 2 tablespoons
• Asafoetida - 1/4 teaspoon
• Cumin Seeds - 1/2 teaspoon
• Salt to taste
• Oil for deep frying

Method

          Sift together the rice flour and urad dal flour, add a tablespoon of hot oil to it and mix it with the flours. To this, add the cumin seeds, salt, asafoetida and adding a little water at a time, bring it together to form a dough. Divide it into portions that would fit in the murukku maker.

          Grease the murukku maker/press with a little oil and heat some oil for deep frying the murukkus. Now take one of the dough portions ( keep the others covered ), put it into the murukku press, close it and press out murukkus as shown ( going about in a circular motion, since I used the 5 holed plate, I just did one circle, cut and crossed the dough to the center, so that it'll hold its shape while frying ) on the backside of a flat laddle.

          Once the oil is hot enough ( a small ball of dough, dropped in the oil, should bounce back up to the top, not too fast or too slow), take the laddle, and tilt it slowly into the oil and dip, the dough will slide into the oil.

          Fry till it's light pink on both sides, remove and drain the excess oil. When cooled completely, store in an air tight container.

Note
Do the murukkus, as soon as you make the dough, if doing in large quantities, divide into portions of a cup or two, mix water and make dough with one portion at a time, make the murukkus, then proceed with the other portions.
The murukku dough should be neither too soft or too hard, you should be able to press it out easily, especially with the murukku presses availabe now.
If you feel the cumin seeds is blocking the holes of the press, pound it coarsely and add.
I have used store bought rice flour, we can use idiyappam flout too, don't skip the 'sifting flours' step, any impurities in the flour, may lead to the murukkus bursting while deep frying.
If using store bought urad flour, just roast the flour slightly and add. I roasted some whole husked urad dal, powdered  and sieved it a couple of times and then added it to the rice flour.
Don't fry the murukkus in very hot oil, they'll brown fast, or if the temperature of the oil is low, then they'll take longer to fry and the texture will be too hard.
When we drop the murukkus in the hot oil, it'll start sizzling and slowly settle down once the murukkus are cooked.
You'll get about 15 medium sized murukkus for the above measurements.
If the thenkuzhal is properly done, then you'll have a small hole in the center of the cooked murukku.