Thenkozhal

Eating something karamura along with tea / coffee in weekend ritual in my family. My husband will demand for bajjis all the weeks (he is never tired of them), but I like these types (thenkozhal, muthusaram) as it can be stored and enjoyed throughout the week.  During krishnar jayanthi we processed the rice flour in bulk, so it can be used for couple of weeks.  We used it for Ganesh chathurthi too, now using it for this thenkozhal.

Then Kozhal ingredients are just same as Kai murukku.

The below ingrediants is for making one batch, will yield around 25 medium size approximately. We should always make this in batches, as the mavu becomes dry after a while and murukku will break while pressing.

Ingredients:

• Raw Rice flour – 2 cups
• Urad dal flour – 2 tbsp
• Butter – 1.5 tbsp (room temperature)
• Jeera -  1 tsp
• Salt to Taste
• Asofoetida – ½ tsp
• Water as required
• Coconut Oil to deep fry

Rice flour Preparations:

Rinse the rice well and soak it for 1.5 hrs.

Drain the water and dry it in veshty cloth, till it looses the moisture. (Half an hour)

Make it into fine powder.

Now we have to sift well to remove any impurities and to filter a finer powder.

Refer below link for stepwise pictures for rice flour preparations. 

http://nammathusamayal.blogspot.in/2014/08/kai-murukku.html

Urad Dal flour Preparations:

Dry roast urad dal till nice aroma comes.

Cool it down and make it a fine powder.

Sift it well.

Salt in water :

Dissolve a tbsp of salt in 2 cups of water. This is for mixing salt evenly. You can also add salt directly, but make sure you add correctly and well mixed.

Method :

In a wide bowl, add rice flour, urad dal powder, asofoetida, Jeera, butter.

I added 2 small ladle of salt water. You have to check and add according to your taste.

Add little by little and prepare loose dough.

Heat the coconut oil in a frying pan.

Now fill this mavu in a murukku press, Make circle pattern in the back of the ladle and gently transfer it to the oil, once the oil is heated.

Flip[ the sides and cook them well. You can see the stages below. The oil becomes frothy initially, later the frothing comes to halt.

Take out from the oil, drain it in tissues.

Once it is cooled down, store in a air tight dabba and serve with Coffee / tea in the evenings. It stays well for about 10 days.

Thenga Pooranam

I will always have super festive spirits. I am not a very spiritual person. What attract to me to these festivals are the special foods that are prepared during these days. I try to plan ahead and make the preparations in advance, so that I will not spend much time on preparing these on that day.

Likewise for vinayagar chathurthi, the Thenga pooranam can be prepared the previous day and can be refrigerated.  The pooranam stays good for a week when refrigerated.

Ingredients:

• Grated coconut – 1 cup
• Paagu Vellam / Jaggery – ¾ cup
• Water – Just to cover jaggery
• Cardamom Powder – ½ tsp
• Ghee – 1 tbsp

Optional Ingredients :

• Poppy seeds – 1 tsp
• Roasted chenna dal – 1 tsp
• Ghee – 1 tsp
• Cashews – 5 broken roughly into small pieces.

Preparation :

Grate the coconut.

Powder the jaggery or you can grate them too. Grating is messy. You can also buy powdered jaggery in the stores directly.

If you are planning to add poppy seeds and roasted Chenna dal, dry roast them separately till it is fried well and powder them and keep aside. This gives good texture and aroma to the pooranam. If you don’t have these, just skip this step.

Break the cashews into small pieces, fry them in ghee and keep it aside.

Method:

Take powdered jaggery in thick wide kadai.  

Add water till it is covered. Leave it for half an hour.

Most of the jaggery will be dissolved, for the rest of bigger pieces, just mash it with ladle. I powdered the jaggery with help of coconut, that's the reason you can see the lil pieces of husks floating :).

If you do not have much time to soak the jaggery, heat it low flame, till it melts.

Filter to remove any impurities.

Now transfer again to the thick kadai, add ghee and heat it in medium flame.

Once it starts boiling well, add the grated coconut.

Add the poopy seeds and Chenna dal powder at this stage.

Add fried cashews.

Mix all the ingredients well and keep stirring  for about 5 mins, till the mixture leaves the sides of the kadai.

Add cardamom powder and mix well.

Let it cool down completely.

The mixture will look little watery when hot, it will solidify once it cools down.

Now this is ready to be stuffed in modak or kozhakkatai.

Fried Poorana Kozhukattai

I like these deep fried kozhukattai / Modak to normal kozhukattai. These are little time taking than the normal steamed ones, but the crispy outer coating and sweet soft inner stuffing are my all-time favorite.

One big advantage of this deep fried one is.. it can be stored and consumed for couple of days, whereas steamed ones should be consumed the same day.

Let’s straightly jump into the recipe

Ingredients: (Out the outer Layer)

• Wheat Flour – 1 cup
• Water
• Oil – 1 tsp
• Salt

Ingredients for the filling (pooram)

• Grated Coconut – 1 cup
• Powdered Jaggery – 1 cup
• Cardamom powder – ½ tsp
• Water – nearly ¼ cup.
• Ghee – 1 tbsp

General :

• Oil to deep fry

Method:

First lets prepare the outer layer dough.

The preparation is just like chapathi dough.

Take wheat flour in a wide bowl, add a pinch of salt and add water little by little and knead well and make it pliable dough. Finally add a tsp of oil and knead well and keep it aside.

Let’s work on the filling now.

In a thick bottom kadai, add jaggery and little water just that jaggery is covered. In medium heat stir well.

Once jaggery is melted, filter it for any impurities.

Transfer it back to the kadai and heat it.

When the jaggery water starts to boil, add the coconut and stir well.

Add a tbsp of ghee and cardamom powder.

Keep stirring it until the mixture leaves the sides of the pan.

Now the pooranam is ready. Switch off the stove and let it cool down completely.

Now we have to assemble to kozhukattai.

Roll the dough like chapathis (not very thin or thick) and with a glass tumbler or a cookie cutter, cut them into small circles.

Put the pooranam filling in the centre and carefully bring all the sides to the centre and give a small twist.

You will get the trick in couple of attempts.

Make sure there is no gap, because when u deep fry, the filling will spill off.

Now deep fry them in medium heat. They turn to slight golden color.

Drain in the tissue paper. Now the kozhakattai is ready  for neivedyam.