Murmura Ladoo (Mamra Na Ladoo)

I’d seen a post, of these ladoos, on a food forum at Facebook and I’d been yearning to make these. It brought back a memory of mum’s masi making these ladoos for her. Yes, mum loves Murmura Ladoos. While I did read the recipe posted at the food forum, I check out many recipes online and finally homed in on a You Tube recipe by Bharatz Kitchen. These babies turned out super!

Ingredients:

3 cups (57 grams – cup filled to the brim) murmura / puffed rice / mamra

1 cup (200 to 210 grams) jaggery

1 tablespoon clarified butter

Extras To Keep Ready:

A tiny bowl filled with room temperature water (for jaggery check)

A bowl of cool water to dip your hands

2 plates or thalis

Method:

1.    Roast the murmura on medium heat, stirring continuously, in a nonstick pan or a large wok. Do not allow the murmura to burn or catch colour.

2.    When all the murmura are hot to touch and well roasted (randomly pick up two-three murmura and break each into two, if you hear a ‘snap’, they’re well roasted)

3.    Remove the murmura onto a plate and keep aside.

4.    Put same the wok/pan back on low flame. Add clarified butter.

5.    When the clarified butter melts, add jaggery and allow it to melt. Keep stirring it continuously, preferable with a flat wooden spoon.

6.    When the jaggery has melted completely, cook it until it begins to turn one shade darker.

7.    Take a drop of jaggery and drop it into the tiny bowl of water.

8.    Fish out the jaggery from the bowl and if it has held its shape without disintegrating the consistency of jaggery is perfect.

9.    Shut off the stove and QUICKLY but CAREFULLY add the murmura to the molten jaggery.

10. Mix the murmura and jaggery in a way that the jaggery evenly coats the murmuras.

11. Transfer contents of the wok onto a plate.

12. Dip your hands in cool water, take a portion of the murmura-jaggery mixture and quickly roll it into a ball, place it onto the other plate. The size of the ladoo is entirely up to you.

13. Keep dipping your hands in water and continue making murmura-jaggery ladoos until all the mixture is used up.

14. This quantity gave me 18 ladoos, the size of large lemons.

Chef Notes:

1.    We wanted hard ladoos hence cooked the jaggery to one shade darker, after it had melted. If you prefer ladoos a tad softer and chewier, as soon as you realize the jaggery is molten and melted, add the murmuras and continue with the rest of the recipe as mentioned. For softer and chewier ladoos, do NOT allow the jaggery to go a shade darker. Also, for softer ladoos, you may omit the jaggery-drop water check.

2.    Yes, you may use powdered jaggery instead of regular jaggery cubes.

3.    Please keep both the bowls of water and the plates ready as you do NOT want to run around at the last minute.

4.    Once the mixture is taken off the stove it is scalding hot but solidifies very rapidly. That is precisely why from Point No 9 to 13 you need to work very quickly. You also need to be very careful as the mixture is hot and that is why we use the bowl of cool water to dip our hands. I’m told some people also coat their hands with ghee. How well that works, I really have no clue.

5.    Even after having dipped your hands in cool water, you will be going, “ouch ouch” at times, while handling the hot mixture. Come on, be brave, I could do it, so can you. *evil grin*

6.    Preferably, use a nonstick vessel if you are giving this a try for the first time. Also, post-cooking, it’s way easier to clean.

7.    There can be many variations and additions to this ladoo. Please note, I have made the absolute basic, no-frills recipe.

8.    There is an easy way out if you are scared of handling the hot mixture. Lightly grease a thali with clarified butter, pour in the hot murmura-jaggery mixture, press the mixture into the thali and spread it evenly. The spread should be, approximately, an inch thick. Quickly make square or diamond shaped cuts into the mixture with a knife as you would when making chikki. This will make it easier to break the murmura pieces after it solidifies. Voila! Instead of ladoos, you’ve made murmura chikki. Now that I’ve given you an easy way out, there’s no excuse for you not to make this, eh? 😉

9.    You may share the direct blog-link of the recipe/s but do NOT publish my recipes, and/or my photographs, on any blogsite or website without my explicit consent or attempt to pass off my recipe/s as your own. You will be held accountable for plagiarism.

Some more photographs: