Thenkuzhal Murukku | Chakli

Here is another festival favorite – Thenkuzhal. A savory snack made for Diwali and Janmashtami in large scale to share with neighbors and family. It stays crispy and crunchy for about 3 weeks if it lasts that long :). Then means honey and kuzhal hollow stick or flute like. so Thenkuzhal is flute like sweetness ( my interpretation). Basicallly a well made crunchy thenkushal will be hollow in the middle, you can actually see the hole when you break the murukku.

Most of these fried savory goodies are made of rice flour, gram flour or all purpose flour. Thenkuzhal is also made of rice flour and Urad flour combination and is tastes amazing with 4 other simple ingredients – jeera, butter, hing and salt.

The festivities started weeks ahead, form planning what to make for this yer diwali or janmashtami. I remember the big iron khadai/skillet, long ladle with holes that would come out during the a week ahead of the actual festival during the peak season of August to November, ready to prepare many varieties of sweet and savory dishes over a 3-4 day period.

There were few items that were make slightly more than the others as they were distributed to friends and neighbors as prasads and Thenkuzhal is one such dish. Here is my grand dad’s recipe that may mom and now I use.

Thenkuzhal Murukku | Chakli

Servings: 4
Time: 1 hr
Difficulty: medium
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Ingredients:

Rice flour – 2 cups
Urad dal flour – 2 Tbs
Butter -1/4 cup ( room temperature)
Jeera seeds – 1 tsp
Salt – to taste
Hing – 1 tsp
Water to kneed
Oil to fry

Method:

In a pan dry roast 2 tbs of of urad dal to a golden brown color.
Once done let the dal come to room temperature before grinding it to a powder. Meanwhile….
Take 2 cups of rice flour and lightly fry it in the same pan. Make sure you do this in a very low flame and that the rice flour does not change color.
Once the flour is hot to touch remove it in a mixing bowl.
Now grind the urad dal in to a smooth flour. Sift it to remove the dal residue that is not ground properly.
Add 1/4th cup urad dal powder to the rice flour and add in the 1/4 th cup butter and mix it well.
Add the jeera seeds, salt and hing to it and mix well. The mix should be hold shape when held tight and should crumble when broken ( similar to the pie crust consistency)
Now divide the mix to 2 equal parts
Add water to the first part and make it to a smooth dough. make sure that it is not too hard to watery but just right to be able to press out of the Thenkuzhal mold ( if you know how the magnetic sand is it should be similar)
Now heat the oil in medium heat
Fill the mold container with the dough and slowly squeeze out the dough in hot oil. Make sure to fry it in the same temperature of for same color and crunch.
Now prepare the 2nd batch of the mix and follow by repeating steps 9-11.