Its festival time !!!. Here is a festival time snack from southern states. Munthiri kothu (മുന്തിരി കൊത്ത്/முந்திரி கொத்து) is a unique snack very common in Southern parts of south Indian states of Kerala & Tamil Nadu. Its main ingredients are  powdered moong daal (ചെറുപയർ ) and jaggery (ശർക്കര) along with coconut, fried in oil.  The good thing about this snack is that, it can be preserved for weeks (about 4-5 weeks) in normal temperature.  It goes well with evening tea or even as school snacks for kids.

Ingredients

1. Lentil (Moong dal)            : 2 cup
2. Grated coconut  : 2 cup
3. Jaggery (ശർക്കര) : 1 ½ cup
4. Cardamom          : 8
5. Water                   : ¾ cup (aprox.)

For batter :-

1. Rice flour.                  1 C
2. Turmeric powder.    Pinch
3. Water.                        As needed

For frying :-

Oil as required for frying.

Method

Preparing the batter.

• Mix the rice flour with the turmeric powder and water. Make sure to add the water, a little at a time only, while mixing. Don’t pour. The consistency should be thick.

Making balls.

• Dry roast the lentil along with the cardamom in medium flame, until the lentle gets the golden color. (Don’t use oil)
• Then roast the coconut until the color changes to light brown.
• Once the roasted ingredients are cool, grind the roasted lentil and coconut separately – NOT too fine powder, only medium as can be seen in the picture.

• Keep a pan on the stove and put the crushed jaggery along with water and make syrup of it.Once entire jaggery dissolved in the syrup, take out and filter (for removing any the dirt from the jiggery) the syrup and keep aside.

• Keep a kadai on the stove and pour the jaggery syrup, once it boiled add the powdered ingredients, mix everything well and switch off the stove.
• Wait for the mixture to get cooled. Then make small balls (of gooseberry size) with hand as shown in the picture.
• Keep the balls for 4-5 hours for setting the balls well.

Frying

• Keep a frying pan/ kadai on the stove and pour the oil and boil it in medium flame.
• Once the oil is hot, dip the balls into the rice batter; make sure the balls covers well with the batter.
• Put this dipped balls into the oil, and fry until the color become golden color.

Tips:

–        Initially, after making the balls I tried immediate frying, but was getting broken while frying. So I kept the balls over night and found coming out pretty good.

–        Keep the flame in medium throughout the frying.

–        For preserving for longer period, keep the fully cooled snack balls in an air tight container.