Mangalore Buns

This incident happened in Oct'2007. Every year on the Durgastami festival day(8th day of Navaratri) we perform Durga homa(prayers) at a temple near Hebri, Udupi District, Karnataka. Entire family members would manage to go for that festival. As my hubby was on travel, myself, my son, my brother-in-law & my brother traveled together from Bangalore. My mom, mom-in-law, co-sister & others managed to come early in the morning from Mysore. We took a bus previous evening at around 7:30p.m, as we wanted to reach as early as possible. The journey was around 8-9hours & we had anticipated a "traffic jam" in the ghats (curvy roads) of 1-2 hours.

Our bus got punctured near Hassan & we spent 2 hours there & after that, there was a jam in the Charmadi Ghats for just 5 hours or so.(My son was just 1 year then & God knows how I handled him alone for 18 hours in the bus). Though I had carried formula, warm water for my son, he did not want milk. It was around 10a.m & our bus stopped in a small food joint (Bhatra hotel), near Dharmastala, Karnataka. The entire bus jumped in as if they have not eaten anything for decades. All the dishes in that small food joint got over in no time. My son being very slow in eating didnot get anything to eat. The cook cum server cum cashier of that small food joint said, he would prepare couple of buns for my son. Our bus driver was kind enough to wait for 10mins more for us. The chef(?!) cooked in a jiffy & parceled buns for my son. I was worried if my son would really eat that as I had not given him any fried food till then. But, he surprised me by eating a little more than one buns. (It could be because, he was very hungry or because actually did enjoy eating buns). We reached the temple at 1.30 pm and my son ate the same cold buns for afternoon lunch too :)

This was my son's first experience on buns & whenever I prepare buns, I whole heartedly thank that small food joint so much. Though I didnot get the breakfast, being a typical Indian mom & Indian women, I was happy that my son didnot starve. This incident always reminds me that howmuch ever money you earn & how much ever bread you have at your home, it sometimes becomes very difficult to get food.

Now a bit of information about Buns:
Mangalore Buns, popularly known as Buns, is a specialty of Mangalore / Udupi region, of Karnataka. All small to big restaurants in Mangalore & nearby places serve this as evening snack or morning breakfast. Whenever we get a chance to visit small “bhatra hotel” (small food joints), we not only hog at buns, but also get it parceled to eat in the next couple of days.

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour/maida
1 cup wheat flour/atta/godi hittu
½ cup curd (should be little sour)
4-5tbsp sugar
A generous pinch of salt
2 well ripened medium sized bananas or approximately 3/4th cup mashed banana
½ tsp baking soda
Oil for deep frying
Other ingredients
Wheat flour for dusting

Method:

• Sieve the flours, mix them. Mash the bananas thoroughly.
• Add all the above ingredients mentioned (except oil used for deep frying), prepare a stiff dough (add water if required). Knead the dough well, cover & keep it aside for 5-6hours.
• Heat oil in a broad pan. Make ping pong sized balls with the dough, roll it with a rolling pin by dusting dry flour. Roll the dough, a little thicker than the normal pooris.
• Check the oil, oil should be really hot to fry the buns. Deep fry the buns on both sides.
• Serve it hot with spicy coconut chutney or as is.

PS:

• While preparing the dough, don’t pour more water in the beginning, the water contents in banana + curd would be sufficient most of the times. If the dough becomes very hard, then add few drops of water at a time to prepare stiff dough.
• The dough will ooze out little water during the soaking time, hence the dough becomes soft after the soak time of 5-6 hours.
• Rolled out buns should be thicker than normal poori.
• One can reduce or increase the sugar according to their choice, but note that the specialty of buns is because of its sweetish taste.

Blog Events:
SWC-Meals on Wheels, started & hosted by Lakshmi of Taste Of Mysore. This can be easily stored for 2-3 days & a wonderful snack along with coffee/tea.