Easy Pottukadalai murukku recipe | Snack ideas - Raks Kitchen (2024)

Pottukadalai murukku is one of the easiest murukku recipes. This is my long time wish to try. Full video, step by step pictures post.

When I was a kid, if we get to taste some store bought murukku, it will be having an unique flavor, which we don’t get in the thenkuzhal murukku we make usually with urad dal and rice flour. My mom used to say it is made with pottukadalai in place of urad dal.

Later we used to try pottukadalai murukku at home. But always ended up in oil drunken soft murukkus. The mistake we did was adding too much of pottukadalai flour.

So after many years, with some knowledge that we need less flour along with the rice flour more in ratio, I saw a recipe in my cookbook mom gave. But it involved wet grinding of the flour.

I am yet to try that version but this instant version is really easy to adapt as we can buy store bought rice flour and just powder the pottukadalai we have at home and make this murukku anytime.

This can be made so easily in a jiffy, I tried with less amount, you can make the same for this Diwali as snack. Everyone gonna love this one!

What is pottukadalai?

Pottukadalai is an easily available ingredients in south Indian households. We use pottukadalai (Tamil term) it for chutneys mostly. It looks same like chana, but just that it will be bigger, pale and light weight.

Pottukadalai called roasted gram or fried gram in English commonly in India. Some people also call it roasted chana dal. Pottukadalai is also known as odacha kadalai in Tamil.

Want to understand more what is pottukadalai? It is prepared from Brown chana (Brown chickpeas). It undergoes process of roasting, peeling and splitting the chana.

But it will not be the same if you dry roast chana dal at home. It's light texture is achieved only by factory roasting. It's great to have it as snack as such because of the roasting process.

Pottukadalai is very nutritious just like chana. So it is widely used in households in Tamil Nadu, even for kids.

Ingredients

You can use either homemade pottukadalai flour or even store bought ones. Same goes for rice flour. Make sure both are really fine and good quality. If it is coarse, it will break or even turn hard.

Murukku press

I made this murukku with the press my MIL bought me in Kumbakonam Kumbeswarar temple street shops. She got one murukku press last year for herself and loved it, so she wanted to buy me as well.

You can buy yourself one in such temple street shops. When you visit, you can look for it.

It can also be found in south Indian vessels shop or bought online in Amazon. There are different types, like traditional press, gun model, even screw model. I have screw model as well.

When you buy which ever you decide, make sure to check the murukku mold's plates. Check if they have this disk and if it fits well too.

It is small comparatively and even the plates have tiny holes than the regular ones. She loves tiny things and so do I. The murukkus made with tiny holes plated press is more whiter in color, more crispier as it gets fried easily in the hot oil.

Try yourself to see the difference!

Top tips

• While flipping the murukku in hot oil, be gentle and careful otherwise hot oil will spill.
• Oil should always be hot when you drop the murukkus, otherwise murukku will drink oil and be oily.
• After dropping the murukku, cook the murukku in medium flame to ensure even cooking and golden colour murukkus.
• You can replace ajwain with white sesame or jeera, but I like ajwain the best.
• DO NOT add more oil in dough than required, otherwise the murukku will disintegrate in oil.
• If murukku breaks while you press, then sprinkle little more water to make it smoother dough.
• Keep the dough always covered to avoid drying.
• Also. if doing in large quantity, I suggest you to do in smaller batches, otherwise if you make dough bulk and let it sit, the last murukkus will turn red.
• Make sure you keep enough oil to fry the murukkus, otherwise, it will get burnt at the bottom of the murukku.
• Top up oil if needed when doing in large batches. But wait for oil to get hot again.

Recipe card

Stepwise photos

1. First powder the pottukadali in a mixie and sieve it (not shown in picture). Sieving is IMPORTANT as otherwise it might break or even affect texture. You can powder more quantity than needed and store for future use.

2. Heat required oil in a kadai. Mean while you can make the dough. Place all the ingredients in a mixing bowl, mix well. Add hot oil from the kadai and mix well. Add water gradually and carefully to make a smooth dough.

3. I used the regular 3 eyed thenkuzhal plate for this, you can use the star shaped ones too.

Fill the press ¾th with the dough and squeeze it either directly over the hot oil or over few greased ladles and then carefully flip to the oil. I did the later as I cant handle the heat when we squeeze over the hot oil as steam will be too hot.

Also squeezing in ladle then transferring aids good shape. I always do this from the beginning which I learnt from my MIL. Make sure oil is hot enough by checking dropping a small piece of dough, it should come up immediately.

4. I fried 3 at a time. Cook both sides until golden in colour in medium flame. Shh sound should cease and bubbles should be reduced.

5. Drain in paper towel and cool down before transferring to the airtight container.

Enjoy these crispiest murukkus as snack along the coffee/ tea, the unique flavor of ajwain goes well with the pottukadalai murukku!