MANOHARAM, PARUPPU THENGAI

Manoharam murukku is also known as “Paruppu Thengai” is a traditional festive sweet.  This is frequently prepared in Southern part of India for most of the festivals and especially South Indian Weddings, is a must.

A Wonderful sweet that you will enjoy any time of the day.  My mother in law  prepares this  very often as it is my son's favourite.      When she used to prepare, I always used to help her out.  Since she is no more, the sweet was  forgotten as I never ventured to prepare this alone, though I used to tell everyone that my son reminds me of my mother in law for preparing the “Vella dosa”, Appalam Kuzhambu & Manoharam.

I never wrote the recipe in  my book but faintly remembered that she prepared the same with Besan i.e. kadala mavu or chick pea flour.  But when I searched in the net, everyone has adopted the thenkuzhal recipe which I was not willing to follow and was in search of the original recipe of my mother in law. 

Recently, my sister in law called up and the topic of Manoharam was discussed.  Then I checked with her and also with my mami and a friend of mine and the recipe of the three was similar.  Hence, I decided to try my hand on it and was successful in the first attempt.  But my son was very particular about it and he told me that the glaze and colour was not matching with “Thattima’s “  (Grandma) Manoharam.  Unfortunately, the jaggery which I had  was tasting bit salty.  Since I was trying it for the first time without my MOM in laws help, I prepared with a small quantity and was thrilled that it tasted awesome.

 

Coming back to the recipe now and let us look at it:

Total time taken: 1 hour

Yield: 1 bowlful.

Ingredients:

1 cup besan

water

Oil for frying

A pinch of salt

Other ingredients:

 1 tbsp sugar powder

Jaggery syrup:

½ cup jaggery

1 tbsp coconut diced into small bits (you can use kopra also)

¼ tsp dry ginger powder ( if you prefer the flavor, can add bit more)

½ tsp cardamom powder

Water enough to immerse the jaggery.

Method:

Sieve the besan  and  put it in a wide bowl.

Add salt and enough water to make a batter like the omapodi batter.

Heat oil, put the batter in the Chakli Press with three holes in the plate.

Make small chaklis out of it and deep fry them till brown and crispy.

Transfer to paper napkin to remove the excess oil.  Complete the process with the remaining batter.

Break them into one inch pieces and keep aside.

Preparation of Jaggery sysrup:

Put the jaggery in the kadai, add water and melt it.

Remove the impurities if any. Put the jaggery back into the kadai, the coconut and boil till you reach two to three thread consistency.   Add the ginger powder, cardamom powder and mix well.To check the “Pagu” put little syrup in water.  When you roll it, it should form a ball.   That is the right consistency. Switch off gas. Remove the kadai from gas.

Pour the syrup little by little in the murukku and mix well till it is quoted evenly.    Sprinkle the powdered sugar to get the muruku  separated from each other.

Note: If you are going to make Paruppu Thengai, do not use the sugar powder.