Jhal muri recipe

 Jhal muri recipe

Jhal muri is a popular street food that is very popular in west bengal, orissa and Bangladesh. Though it originated in the region of Bengal it is enjoyed across India. Jhal means spicy and muri is puffed rice. Jhal muri is a spicy puffed rice snack that is loved by everyone. Bhel puri & churumuri are 2 other popular variations of Jhalmuri.

Puffed rice is known by different names in India. Muri, murmura, maramara, pori and kurmura are some of the names. It is a grain that is made by puffing rice. It is mostly used to make snack foods.

It just takes 15 minutes to prepare jhal muri. Puffed rice, roasted peanuts, chanachur, boiled potatoes, chopped tomatoes, onions, coriander and a few other basic ingredients are used to make this. Various spice powders are used to flavor it.

Jhal muri is best served immediately after making otherwise the puffed rice turns soft. We usually serve with crispy Onion pakoda  or Mirchi bajji.

Preparation for jhal muri

1. Wash and chop onions, tomatoes, cucumber and green chilies as well. If you have kids at home, skip green chilies.

2. Chop the boiled potato to small cubes. I cubed the potato first. Then boiled in a pan with some water. The potatoes must be cooked but firm. Do not make them mushy.

3. Also add in chili powder, salt, red chilli powder and muri masala. If you do not have muri masala, then add roasted cumin powder and chaat masala.

4. Next squeeze in lemon juice as needed.

How to make jhal muri

5. Add mustard oil. I used mustard oil from pickle. Earlier I had eaten jhal muri made using oil from pickle and just loved it. So I used the same here.

6. Chop coriander leaves and transfer them here. Make sure the coriander leaves are not too moist. Otherwise jhal muri may turn soggy very quickly.

7. Give all these a good mix. Taste it and add spice powders if you prefer more.

8. Add roasted and skinned peanuts.

9. Pour crisp puffed rice as well. Make sure they are crisp otherwise muri will turn chewy. You can roast them for few minutes to crisp them before adding here.

10. Mix up well. You can add in more puffed rice if it turns moist.

11. Finally add in chananchur or sev.

Serve jhal muri immediately.