Swetha's Fusion

Mangalore Buns

Saturday, October 14, 2017

Mangalore Buns are one of my favorite evening snacks my mom used to make. These are not baked but deep fried instead. They are fluffy sweet pooris(puris). There are prepared as breakfast dish or evening snacks. This is one of the snack you could make when you have really ripe bananas at home which no one wants to eat. In my case, I will let the banana ripe to make this dish.

Ingredients:

1/2 kg maida/all purpose flour/plain flour
2 ripe bananas (fully ripe soft banana's are the best to use)
5 tbsp sugar
Pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder (or Eno Fruit Salt - unflavored one) some use baking soda too.
2 tbsp curds
2 tsp cumin(Geera) seeds
Oil for deep frying
Extra flour for dusting

Method:

Peel and slice the bananas. Add them into a mixer/blender along with salt and sugar. Blend them into a fine paste. You may mash all these in a bowl using your hands.
Transfer the banana paste into a mixing bowl, mix-in the curds, and baking powder.
Heat 1 tbsp dalda/vanaspati or ghee or cooking oil in a tempering pan and keep it aside.
Add maida/plain flour to the mixture in the bowl little by little and knead it into a soft dough. When you have a sticky dough, add in the melted dalda and knead well.
Add in more flour if needed to make a nice dough that doesn't stick to your fingers completely. But we don't need a hard dough. We need a wet, soft, sticky, rubbery dough. (softer than chapathi dough). Note: Do not add any water while kneading the dough. Sugar when mixed with banana and curds gives out enough water to knead this dough. If needed add more curds or buttermilk.
Spread bit of oil over the dough to keep it moist and prevents drying of the outer layer of the dough.
Wet a thin cloth or paper-towel, squeeze out all the excess water, cover the dough completely with this damp cloth and allow it to rest at room temperature for 7-8 hours. The wet cloth helps retain moisture during rising of the dough. Make sure the cloth isn't too wet and is just damp enough.

After at least 6 hours, lightly knead the dough before you role them out. Make tiny lemon sized balls of the dough, roll it out a little using flour to dust. Don't flatten the balls too much, keep them thick. This dough does not roll into round shapes so I use one of my glass bowls to press it into all even round shapes. You may use a cookie cutter too.
Heat oil for deep frying, test if the oil is rolling hot by dropping a small piece of dough. If the dough emerges on top of the oil, that means the oil is hot enough. Lower the flame to medium heat.
Dust excess flour off the rolled pooris and fry them one at a time on medium flame. As soon as you drop the pooris into the oil they puff up beautifully, flip them over, keep them pressed under the oil for few seconds, that helps the puri puff up more.

Once they are cooked on both the sides and are golden brown, remove the poori from the hot oil and place it in a bowl lined with paper towel to drain out extra oil.
Mangalore Buns will last for few days in air tight container. Difference between regular poori and Mangalore Buns is soft fluff inside which resembles a bread -see picture below.