Pearl Millet/Kambu/Bajra Butter Murukku

On Janmashtami, Hindus celebrate the birth of Lord Krishna with zeal and fervour. I indulge in the reminiscence of my childhood celebrations…🤔😍. My mom would be occupied in the kitchen making sweets and savouries, I would enthusiastically decorate laddu gopal/Krishna with flowers and attires. The most interesting part would be drawing the footprint of laddu gopal as a toddler’s footmark.

Coming to today’s celebration, I prepared Pearl millet Butter Murukku. My day-to-day diet prominently consists of traditional rice and millet. How could I resist including millet in my savory? Ta-da!!!, here comes this Kambu/Bajra Chakli. I would define the texture as crispy & crunchy outside with an inside so soft it melts in your mouth. Incredible!!! I used Pearl millet/kambu idiyappam (String hoppers) flour, if you use just the kambu flour, then dry roast it slightly in kadai.

You can try my other festival sweets and snacks recipes, millet recipes like Thinai pongal, Healthy Ragi/Finger millet Idli, Finger millet/Ragi kali/mudde, Instant Ragi Rava Dosa, Traditional rice recipes like Karuppu Kavuni/Black Rice Idli, Mappilai Samba Appam/Bridegroom Pancake, Poongar Arisi Aval Upma/Women’s Rice Poha and Kaattuyaanam Mysore Dosa.

Ingredients:

Kambu idiyappam flour-1 cup

Fried gram flour-3 tbsp

Softened butter-1 tbsp

Cumin seeds-1 tsp

Sesame seeds-1/2 tsp

Asafoetida-a pinch

Salt-as reqd

Oil- for frying

Instructions:

1. Add all the ingredients (except oil)-1 cup kambu idiyappam flour, 3 tbsp fried gram flour,1 tbsp softened butter, 1 tsp Cumin seeds, 1/2 tsp sesame seeds, required salt, and a pinch of asafoetida to a bowl.
2. Mix everything to a crumbled texture.
3. Then add water at intervals and knead into a soft dough.
4. Wrap it with a damp cloth or cling film. Heat a kadai with oil on med-low heat.
5. Make rolls from the dough and fill it in the greased Chakli maker with a star nozzle plate.
6. Squeeze small length chaklis directly onto the oil.
7. Flip in between. Once the sizzling sound ceases, drain them on a kitchen tissue.
8. Repeat it in batches. Once cooled down, store them in an airtight container.

Notes:

Here, I used Idiyappam flour, if it’s not available, you can use any millet flour and roast it on med-low flame till it slightly changes colour and use it to make murukku.

Similarly, you can try the same recipe with regular rice flour, or any other millet flour like finger millet, foxtail millet etc.

To infuse garlic flavour, I used garlic butter which is purely optional. Butter should be at room temperature, so the texture is softened but not melted.

You can either directly squeeze small-length chaklis onto the oil or squeeze onto a greased ladle and then drop them into the oil.

To make the fried gram flour, grind the roasted gram in a mixer to a fine powder and sieve it.