I have been getting many requests for the recipe of Murukku and Maavu Urundai. So thought of posting the recipe for Maavu Urundai today.
Maavu Urundai, is very famous in chettinad. No function is complete without Murukku and Maavu Urundai. During marriages the brides house has to give Kai Sutthal Murukku and Maavu Urundais to the bride grooms house, the number depends on the demand /requirement of the bride grooms family. They are also given to all the close relatives with the Thambulam gift, for the marriage.
Other than marriages, even at sadangu functions maavu urundai plays a very important role in the sadangu thattu. Sadangu Thattus are small silver cups lines in a silver plate. Since the cups are small are able to hold just maybe a couple of maavu urundais, my athai made an idea. What she does is, instead of making small urundais, she greases the nei karandi and fills up the maavu urundai maavu in it and taps it. So they take the shape of half kutti kutti mavu urundais. And all, elders as well as children, are very tempted towards the shape and size of the maavu urundais, that they get over very soon. Everytime I visit my athai, she gives me a bag of maavu urundai maavu ready to be formed into urundais. I bring it home and put it in the freezer. And use it as and when required.
Not only in Marriages and Sadangu, you will find this duo during all the functions of Lord Muruga in Chettinad. It is served as a Neivedhyam to all the Kavadis and then distributed as prasadam. During my childhood days, when my father used to return from home after Thaipoosam festival, I and my brother used to search his bag eagerly for Murukku, Maavu Urundai and Thengai Mittai.
Sorry about that Thanglish, couldn't help it. So lets move on to the recipe. To make these tempting, delicious maavu urundais. it requires very few ingredients and are easily available in all the households.
Ingredients
Passi paruppu / Moong Dal - 2 cups
Sugar - 4 cups
Ghee - As required ( Approx. 3/4th cup)
Method
1) Dry roast the passi paruppu, till a nice aroma comes. It should not turn brown.
2) In a flour mill or mixer, grind together the passi paruppu and sugar to a very fine powder.
3) When warm ghee a little and pour it on the mixture little by little and keep mixing. Once you feel you can make the balls easily without breaking then stop adding ghee. The measurement of ghee I have given is very approximate, because whenever I make maavu urundais, I just warm up some ghee and keep on adding it in the maavu and mixing, if I feel, I am still not able to make balls out of them, then I warm up more ghee.
4) Make maavu urundais and store in an air tight container and enjoy.
It was easy, isn't it. Try out the recipe and let me know how it turned out in your kitchen.
Thanks
Lakshmi Venkatesh
