TranslateMurukku is the crisp spiral that fills steel tins in every Tamil household, especially around Diwali. A dough of rice flour and roasted gram or urad flour, seasoned with sesame, cumin or ajwain, is pressed through a hand-held mould straight into hot oil and fried until it shatters at the first bite.
Type
Vegetarian snack
Meal occasion
Diwali, tea time, travel snack
Region
Statewide; Manapparai and Thenkasi are known for distinct styles
Key ingredients
Rice flour, urad or gram flour, sesame seeds, cumin, butter, oil
Rice flour is combined with roasted lentil flour, salt, sesame seeds and a spoon of butter or hot oil, then bound with water into a firm dough. The dough is loaded into a brass or steel murukku press and squeezed into concentric spirals directly over hot oil, where it fries to a pale gold.
The taste is savoury and faintly nutty, with the sesame coming through strongly. A well-made murukku is light and brittle rather than hard.
Manapparai murukku from Trichy district holds a Geographical Indication tag and is famous for its distinctive crunch, credited locally to the water used. Thenkuzhal is smoother and made with a plain star die, Mullu murukku has a spiky surface from a different die, and Ribbon pakoda is a flat variation of the same family.
Manapparai town near Trichy sells its GI-tagged murukku from roadside shops and at the railway station. Established sweet shops in Chennai, Madurai, Coimbatore and Thanjavur stock several varieties year-round, with the biggest selection appearing in the weeks before Diwali.
