Thenkuzal

This heavenly tasting, crunchy, munchy snack is called Thenkuzal. It is paler in color compared to murukku, eaten with afternoon tea or coffee. Simple to prepare and is perfect for every occasion. My husband like thenkuzal very much for him I used to prepare often. It took me less than a hour to make them. I would have gone with a freshly milled Rice flour and urad flour and thenkuzal were great..

Ingredients:

Rice flour - 3 cups

Urad Dal flour - 1cup

Melted butter – 1to 2 Tbsp

Cumin seeds - 2 tsp

Salt - 1 tsp

A pinch of asafoetida

Water - 1 & 1/4 cups (I needed this much. This may vary)

Oil to fry

A deep frying pan & a Chakli press

Method:

1. Mix the two flours (arisi maavu and ulutham maavu) in the specified ratio.( Mix well all the ingredients (except water & oil) in a mixing bowl. Then gradually add water to the bowl and make a dough, almost like rice flour rotti dough. It should not be watery or very hard, should be somewhere in between.)

2. Add Jeera, asafoetida powder, salt and butter and mix it all into a thigh dough consistency.

3. Make small balls and drop into the acchu.( For Thenkuzal, use the thenkuzal plate, the one which has bigger perforations than a sev one or simply, the one with plain holes. After fixing the plate, take a small portion of the dough and fill it into the chakli press and in a circular motion, press out the dough into the oil. The coils of dough would form a concentric circle. This dough is easy to work with and you can make two to three separate circles at a time or a single one.)

4. Heat oil in a small wok / deep frying pan.When fumes fumes rising Put thenkuzal template in oil one by one.Fry till they turn attain a slight golden tinge. You don't have to fry them till they turn golden brown as murukku. Remove them with a slotted spoon and drain them .

5.Repeat the same process with the remaining dough and fry them in batches. Frying thenkuzal takes very less time, if you do it on a medium flame. Have a yummy thenkuzal for coffee/tea.