Making of special rainy day snacks -maavunda,Munthirikothu,Arimurukku,cheeda

Maavunda
1. Rice Flour – 2 cups, thick coconut milk taken from 2 cups of scrapped coconut – 1 cup. 2. Powdered sugar – 1 cup 3. Ghee – ½ cup to ¾ cup, Kismis soaked in ghee – ¼ cup.

How to prepare
Heat a vessel and roast the rice flour in it. The coconut milk is poured slowly into the flour and stirred well till dry. Now the powdered sugar and kismis is added along with the ghee and the whole lot is mixed well, made to balls and rolled in dry flour.

Munthirikothu
1. Gram dal heated in a vessel and ground to the texture of rava – 1 cup, Roasted rice ground to the consistency of rava – 1 cup
2. Jaggery – 1/4kg, water – ½ cup
3. Ghee – 2 teaspoons
4. Cardamom powder – ½ teaspoon
5. Roasted gingelly – 2 dessert spoons
6. Rice flour – ½ cup, water – to attain required consistency, Salt – to taste

How to prepare
The jaggery is melted and strained. Ghee is added to it. It is then taken off the stove and gram dal, rice flour and cardamom powder are added to it followed by the roasted gingelly. This is then covered and kept aside for some time. The rice flour is then mixed in water. The above prepared dal gram mix is rolled to small balls dipped in the rice flour batter and deep fried.The “munthirikothu” so prepared is then cooled and stored in airtight bottles.

Arimurukku
1. Roasted rice flour – 3 cups
2. Roasted “uzhunnu” ground to a powder – 1 cup
3. Ghee – 3 dessert spoons
4. inegelly – I dessert spoon, cumin – 1 tespoon, powdered asafetida – to taste, salt – 1 pinch

How to prepare
The two powders are mixed together and strained. Ghee or vanaspathi is poured and hand mixed. Enough water is added to make it to a dough. The ramanining ingredients are added. This is the strained through the murukku mould of required shape and deep fried.

Cheeda
1. Roasted rice flour – 1 cup
2. Butter – 1 teaspoon, Soda powder – ½ teaspoon
3. Water – as required
4. Gingelly – 1 teaspoon, cumin – ¼ teaspoon
5. Scrapped coconut – 1 cup

How to prepare
The scrapped coconut is heated in a vessel to remove all moisture and care is taken such that the coconut does not turn brown. Ghee and butter are taken in a flat vessel, the rice flour is added along with water added little by little at a time. This is kneaded like done for “puttu” until a smooth dough is formed. The gingelly and cumin are added next. Finally the coconut is mixed with the dough, which is then rolled to balls and deep fried in low flame in coconut oil.