Butter Murukku without much butter - Crunchy on the outside, melts in your mouth

The secret is to use cooked moong dal. No roasting, no grinding - it's so quick and your mullu murukkus turn out to be crispy yet melt-in-your-mouth kind. 

Butter thenkuzhal

I Used -

• Rice flour -  1 and 1/4 cups
• Moong dhal - 1/2 cup (measured after cooking the dal)
• Butter - 1-2 tbsp
• Sesame seeds - 1 tsp
• Cumin Seeds - 2 tsp
• Salt - as required (start with 3/4 tsp and taste the dough and adjust)
• Hing - 1/2 tsp
• Red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
• Black pepper powder - 1/2 tsp
• Hot oil - for frying

Method -

• Cook moong dal until mushy (Best to pressure-cook. I use 2 and 1/2 times water for 1 cup moong dal). 
• Mix with rice flour, add in the other ingredients like sesame seeds, cumin, red chilli powder, salt, pepper powder and a pinch of asafoetida and finally just 1-2 tbsp of butter. 
• Make a soft dough by adding a little water at a time. 
• Add hot oil to make the dough smooth so that it doesn't stick to your hands or the murukku mould. Just be careful not to hurt your fingers. 
• We're almost there, the rest of the process is mundane. Use the murukku press (you can use the Single star mould for making proper circles and 3 star one for making random shaped mullu murukku) and deep-fry murukkus into hot oil on medium flame until golden brown. 
• Drain on kitchen tissues to remove excess oil. 
• Store in air tight containers after 30 minutes and enjoy :-) 

Happy Deepavali 2014 everyone!