Mangalore Buns (A sweet puri)

A few days ago, I attended a wedding. I went with my mother and aunt. We were very late and missed the ceremony, but managed to be on time for lunch. :) Both the bride and groom were from the Southern Indian state of Tamilnadu. So the cuisine was a typical TamBram affair. The last time I ate a south Indian wedding feast was at least few years ago. This was my first Tamil wedding, so I was looking forward to the feast.
They put a nice, big banana leaf in front of us. Then started a slew of accompaniments. There was a chutney (gojju), a mixed raita, a raw mango pickle ( my favorite in any feast), spiced banana wafers, a wada and a fried papadum. The papadum was huge compared to the puny ones I usually eat.
There were four vegetable dishes - an avial, a mixed vegetable dish with a coconut gravy, a mildly spiced potato dish and a Foogath. The foogath was nice - shredded cabbage, carrots and beans with slit green chilies and sprinkled liberally with freshly grated coconut. There were also four katories filled with spicy rasam, payasam, buttermilk and curd. The payasam was way too sweet for me.
On the whole, a very satisfying meal indeed with the exception of the wada and avial.
This made me think as to why I haven't put up more south Indian recipes. I am from the southern Indian state of Karnataka ( for the nitpickers, I am from Udupi, Mangalore). So I have decided to start with recipes from my state first. Today I will introduce you to a wonderful breakfast dish, deceptively called Buns. It in no way resembles a bun, but is more like a sweet puri.
it derives its sweetness from the banana and has a nice kick added bu black pepper.

The picture of Mangalore Buns is courtesy Khalnayak. You can check out his pictures on Flickr by clicking on this link here - Khalnayak

Ingredients :

Maida (Refined Flour) : 2 cups or as required

Overripe Banana : 1 no.

Jaggery : 3-4 Tbsp.

Soda Bi Carb : 1/4 Tsp.

Sour Curd : 2 Tsp.

Roasted Cumin (Jeera) : 1 Tsp.

Crushed Black Pepper : 1/4 Tsp.

Salt : to taste

Ghee : for frying

Method :

Mash the banana with salt and jaggery and then add the curd, cumin, black pepper, and soda bi carb. Now add the maida to form a dough. Use maida and water as needed as required to make dough. Apply some oil or ghee to cover it and keep overnight to ferment. In the morning, devide the dough evenly into balls. Then roll the dough a little thicker then for a puri (about 1/8 inch). Then deep fry the puris in hot ghee on both sides. Drain on paper.

The puri needs no accompaniments. You just need a cup of steaming, fragrant, flavorful cup of south Indian filter coffee. Aah Heaven!!!