Easy Munthiri Koothu Recipe / Mundhiri Kothu / Traditional Diwali Sweet
Easy Munthiri Koothu Recipe / Mundhirikothu / Green gram jaggery balls is a healthy, traditional south Indian Diwali sweet particularly famous in kanyakumari, tirunelveli and kerala. They are made with green moong dal, jaggery and coconut for inner filling, rice flour batter for outer covering. This sweet is very similar to another South Indian delicacy called suzhiyam (sugiyan), where cooked channa dal is used and they are soft in texture when you bite. But here in this recipe, roasted green dal is used for filling and it is little hard in texture and when you bite, they are really tasty. I never knew about this sweet and tasted before, when I was talking to my father the other day, he told that his grandma used to make mundiri kothu for diwali. I asked my father, is it made with cashews (mundiri) ? He told it was made with green gram dal. I am not sure about the true meaning of munthirikoothu eventhough it is not made with cashews, so when I did google search, many says it means bunch of grapes in malayalam. Since this sweet is famous in tirunelveli district too, I asked one of my tirunelveli friend Ranjitha for Mundhirikothu recipe, she asked her mom and got the recipe for me. Thank you Ranjitha. You can make this mundirikothu during festival time like diwali or as evening tea time snack.
How to make Easy Munthiri Koothu Recipe
- Inner Filling
- ¼ Cup of Green Moong Dal
- ¼ Cup + 1 Tbsp of Jaggery
- ¼ Cup of Coconut
- 1 Tbsp of Sesame Seeds
- Pinch of Salt
- Pinch of Dry Ginger Powder (optional)
- 2 Cardamom
- Outer Cover
- ⅓ Cup of Rice Flour (store-bought)
- Water as required
- Pinch of Turmeric Powder
- Salt as needed
- Heat a pan, dry roast the green moong dal for 8 -10 mins in a medium flame, stir continously until they turn golden brown colour. Transfer this to a plate and allow it to cool.
- In the same pan, add sesame seeds, roast it till you hear crackle sound and changed to golden brown colour. Transfer it to another plate.
- Heat the same pan, add jaggery and water, allow it boil until it completely dissolves. Strain it to remove impurities and transfer it to the same pan, let it boil for 6 mins in a medium heat, finally add coconut, dry ginger powder and cardamom, stir everything well. Transfer it to a bowl.
- Now take a blender and add roasted green gram dal, grind it little coarssely, it should look like semolina.
- Transfer this to a coconut-jaggery bowl, add raosted sesame seeds and salt, mix everything together.
- Make equally sized balls out of the mixture and leave it aside for 30 mins. You can also keep it for 1-3 hours for setting. Now the balls are little hard, don’t worry they are supposed to be.
- For outer cover, add rice flour, turmeric powder, salt and water, mix everything well. The batter should be in dosa batter consistency.
- Meanwhile heat a pan with oil to deep fry, dip the moong balls in this rice batter, make sure the balls covers well with batter and gently put this oil, deep fry cook both sides until it turns golden colour. Repeat the same process for the rest of the balls.
- Hot, delicious mundhirikothu is ready for diwali.
Always fry it in a medium flame.
Adjust the amount of jaggery according to your taste.
store it in an airtight container and keep it for a weeks.
For outer covering, you can use homemade rice flour or store bought rice flour or maida.
Adding dry ginger powder for easy digestion. if dont want, avoid it.
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