The dish

Murukku — what you need to know

Murukku is South India's festival snack — rice flour and urad dal flour spirals fried until completely crispy. It differs from Maharashtrian chakli in its urad dal component, which adds a distinctive nutty flavour and a more brittle crunch. Making murukku requires a murukku press (or chakli maker) and a confident hand — the spirals must be pressed directly into hot oil.

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What you need

Ingredients

Murukku

Main

1 cuprice flour
2 tbspurad dal flour toasted
1 tspsesame seeds
1 tspcumin seeds
½ tspred chilli powder
Saltto taste
2 tbspbutter softened
Waterto bind

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Method

How to make it — step by step

Step 1

Toast urad dal flour

⏱ 3 min

Toast urad dal flour in a dry pan 2–3 minutes until fragrant. Cool. Mix all dry ingredients. Rub in butter until crumbly.

🔬The Science

Toasting urad dal flour develops Maillard compounds (pyrazines) that give murukku its distinctive nutty depth absent from plain rice flour chakli. The butter coating prevents gluten and creates the brittle crunch.

Step 2

Press into hot oil — 170°C

⚡ 170°C⏱ 4 min

Add water to make a smooth, firm dough. Press in spiral shapes directly into 170°C oil. Fry 3–4 minutes until crispy and golden all over.

🔬The Science

170°C allows the rice-urad mixture to dehydrate evenly through the thin pressed spiral. The urad protein sets rapidly in the hot oil, locking the shape before the rice starch fully crisps.

⚠️Common mistakes to avoid

Toast the urad flour — Raw urad flour lacks depth.
Firm dough — Soft dough produces oily murukku.