Munthiri Kothu | Kothu | Diwali Recipe

Munthiri Kothu/Kothu, a traditional diwali sweet recipe made from whole moong dal and palm jaggery in South Tamilnadu. As they are deep fried in bunches,they are called as kothu(tamil word for bunches). Still i remember that in my childhood days, on every diwali, in almost every home in our area, they used to prepare this munthiri kothu and athirasam,but nowadays only few people are making this on diwali 😞
I want to try this for a while and on last year diwali itself, i got the recipe from my mom and had tried it with very less quantity and it turned it out so good😋 Again i made this yesterday ahead of diwali just to share here. There are two things you should be careful while making this sweet

1. Jaggery Syrup consistency is very important
2. Don't grind the moong dal into very fine.

Other than that, it's so simple and even if you can't fry them in bunches, fry one at a time, still it tastes the same.Munthiri kothu is one of the very few sweets that you can make without any ghee,milk and refined sugar, still it taste delicious and also it has very long self life at room temperature. There are quite a few variation in making the inside stuffing and outside coating. Here i have shared the recipe on how we make it in our home. If you're making this for first time, make sure that you read the notes section.

Munthiri Kothu

Preparation Time : 20 mins | Cooking Time : 20 mins | Serves : 30 
Recipe Category: Sweet | Recipe Cuisine: Indian
Munthiri Kothu,Kothu Recipe,Tirunelveli munthiri Kothu,Deepavali Sweets,Diwali Sweet, Munthiri Kothu/Kothu, a traditional diwali sweet recipe made from whole moong dal and palm jaggery in South Tamilnadu.

Sandhiya https://www.facebook.com/SandhiyasCookbook https://www.instagram.com/sandhiyascookbook/

Ingredients
Pasi Payaru/ Whole Moong dal - 1 cup
Grated Coconut - 1/2 cup
Palm Jaggery/Karupatti - 3/4 cup(heaped)
Cardamom - 3
Maida - 1/2 cup
Salt - a pinch
Water - as needed
Oil - for deep frying

Procedure

Heat a kadai, add the pasi payaru and dry roast till it starts  to change the color from green to light brown,by that time, it also be so aromatic.Remove from the heat and transfer into plate and let it cool. In the same pan, add the coconut and start roasting in the low flame.Once the coconut becomes reddish in color, remove from the flame and let it cool completely. Once the moong dal is cooled, add into the mixie jar.Add the cardamom into the jar and grind into coarse powder.Neither too grainy nor fine powder.Transfer that into the bowl, add the coconut and mix it together well.Now for the syrup, add the palm jaggery and water(just enough to soak the jaggery) and bring into boil.Let the jaggery dissolves completely.Then keep the flame in medium and cook it reaches 1/2 string consistency. 1/2 string consistency means take the syrup between your thumb and fore finger, when you separate your fingers, initially it forms the string string and when you move your finger further apart, it breaks. That's the correct stage.Remove the syrup from the flame and pour into the dal mixture. Mix it well with spoon.Once it comes together, let it aside for 1-2 mins until it comes to hand bearable temperature and then make small balls out of it and keep aside.Now for the outer coating, take the maida in a bowl, add a pinch of salt and enough water, mix it well and make a smooth batter and the consistency is like bhaji batter.Heat the oil for frying, take three moong dal balls like a triangle and dip it in the batter well.Slowly drop into the hot oil and cook it for 2 mins on each side or until the outer layer becomes crispy.That's it, Traditional Munthiri kothu is ready.

Notes:

• 1/2 string consistency is in between sticky consistency and 1 string consistency, so keep the flame in low once the syrup became sticky, that way you don't miss the correct consistency.
• Filter the jaggery syrup before you pour into the moong dal mixture.
• After the jaggery syrup is added into the dal mixture, don't let it sit for long time, it becomes hard and you can't make balls out of it. Once it comes to hand bearable temperature, immediately start making balls.
• If you're making in large quantity, then don't pour the entire jaggery syrup at once, add just little by little and make balls. That helps to prevent the mixture becomes hard at the last.
• Make sure that you roast the coconut in low flame, then only you get that reddish color on coconut.
• Roasting coconut helps to increase the self life of munthiri kothu
• Palm Jaggery gives great taste to the munthiri kothu.
• I have seen people adding turmeric powder on the maida batter, but in our home, we don't add that, but if you want that yellow color on outside, you can add the turmeric powder.