Take about ¼ cup of roasted gram dal and grind into a fine powder. We only need ¼ cup of gram flour for this recipe.

In a large mixing bowl, add the ragi flour, roasted gram flour, rice flour, cumin seeds, asafoetida, 1 tbsp coconut oil, and salt.

Mix them all. Make sure the coconut oil is well combined.

Now add water little by little and make a soft and smooth dough. I used about ½ cup + 1 tbsp of water. Make sure the dough is not too hard. It becomes hard to press, and also, the murukku breaks if it is too hard. If it's too soft with more moisture, the murukku will absorb oil. Water entirely depends upon the quality of the flour used. So add little by little as required.

I used the star-shaped mold for this murukku. You can use your preferred mold. Grease the murukku press with oil.

Then add the dough in the murukku press. I was able to add the entire dough into the press. But you can add half of the dough, and after pressing, you can add the remaining.

If you are comfortable, you can press it directly on hot oil if not press them on the back of a ladle like below.

Slowly and carefully drop them into oil and fry the murukku. Flip the murukku over after 40-45 seconds and fry until the bubble ceases. Make sure you fry over a low medium flame so that the murukku gets cooked thoroughly.

Place the fried murukku on parchment paper or tissue paper and drain the excess oil.

Some dough will be sticking to the murukku press. You can flatten it like thattai or shape it like seedai and fry them to avoid the wastage.

Store in an airtight container and enjoy.