Potato Murukku~Potato Crunchy Twisters!

I know it has been a while since I blogged, and I have no excuses for yet...except that I have been super lazy :) And yes, I have been pretty busy as well with work, so do excuse me if I felt the need to just crawl into bed and not think of anything else except relax these past couple of days.

And then I realised, the festival of lights is coming up.....Happy Deepawali in advance peeps!! The festival of lights and great clothes and awesome jewelry...not to mention, all that fantastic food! One of the most traditional snacks served during Deepawali is the murukku...Now, just for the benfit of my non Indian friends, I took the liberty of looking up what this meant, and it means "Crispy Twisters". See, the things I do for u guys....lol!!

Murukku is normally made from rice flower and urad dal, but as always, I had to come up with something different from the usual, and that's when I stumbled upon this fantastic recipe from Sharmi's Passions which totally made my day, so a big shout out to Sharmi!! The only thing you need is the "idiyappam achu". But do not worry if you do not have this, I realized that if you have a piping bag that you use to put icing on cakes, you can still make this, so there, it's that simple!

So obviously, the main ingredient in this is potato, but you will not believe how incredibly easy this is, because there's only a few ingredients and the only thing that can seem a bit tricky is to get the concentric circles, but then again, clumsy that I am, I just made them into pretty much any shape that I could manage! So shall we find out how to do this :)

INGREDIENTS (10-12)

• Rice flour- 1 cup
• Potato- 1 medium sized
• Jeera (Cumin Seeds)- 1 tablespoon
• Pepper powder- 1 teaspoon (depending on the spice level required)
• Red chilly powder (1/2 teaspoon- optional)
• Asafoetida (Hing)- A pinch
• Salt to taste
• Boiling water- Approx a cup or as required
• Oil for deep frying. Coconut oil is preferred, any type of refined oil will do.

METHOD

• Boil the potato with the skin using a pressure cooker up to 5 whistles till it gets properly soft and mashable. If using the stove, boil the potato for about 30-40 minutes.
• Once it cools down, cut the potato into smaller pieces and grind it using a grinder till it takes on the consistency of wet dough.
• In a bowl, mix the dough, with rice flour, chilly powder, jeera, hing, salt and pepper. Add boiling water as required till the dough reaches the right consistency.
• Split the dough and add this bit by bit to the "idiyappam achu" or the "icing bag" and squeeze out the dough into a shape of your choice. Concentric circles are what is preferred, but to each his own :)
• Drop this into the hot oil and fry for about a minute till the murukku gets a golden brown color and the right crunchiness.

And voila, yummy murukku is ready!!

Watch this space for more Diwali recipes! May the season of light bring joy, happiness and prosperity to all of you! God bless you all!! Till next time, adios my friends!!