Mangalore buns are sweet fried puffed bread made with mashed bananas, flour, sugar and spiced with a touch of ground cumin. These sweet banana buns or poori as they are known is a specialty dish from the Mangalore region in Karnataka.

Recipe Snapshot

  • Prep time: 10 minutes
  • Cook time: 30 minutes
  • Total time: 280 minutes
  • Yield: 3
  • Category: Sweets
  • Cuisine: Indian, Mangalorean

Ingredients

  • 1 banana (medium-sized robusta banana or any variety, preferably overripe)
  • 3 tablespoons raw sugar (or jaggery powder, add as required)
  • ½ teaspoon cumin powder ((ground cumin))
  • 1 pinch salt (- optional)
  • 2 pinches baking soda (- a pinch here refers to the pinch between the thumb and forefinger and not a chef's pinch)
  • 1 to 2 tablespoons curd ((yogurt))
  • 1.5 cups whole wheat flour (or all purpose flour or use half-half of both)
  • 1 teaspoon ghee (or oil)
  • oil (as required for deep frying)

Method

Making dough

  1. In a mixing bowl, take the chopped banana and sugar.
  2. The sugar helps in the mashing of the bananas very well. You can also just puree the bananas in a blender and then add sugar.
  3. The bananas have to be mashed well.
  4. Add the flour (whole wheat flour or all purpose flour or mix of both), 1 tablespoon curd (yogurt), salt, ghee, baking soda and cumin powder to the banana puree.
  5. If you can knead with 1 tablespoon curd, then fine. If the mixture looks dry or floury, then add 1 tablespoon curd again and knead. The quantity of curd required depends on the type and quality of flour. I used 2 tablespoons of curd to knead the dough.
  6. Knead into a smooth dough. The dough is slightly sticky. So while kneading you can apply some oil/ghee in your hands and knead.
  7. If the dough becomes very sticky, then add some whole wheat flour and sugar accordingly.
  8. Keep the dough covered in a bowl for 3 to 4 hours at room temperature or refrigerate the dough overnight or for 7 to 8 hours. You can spread some oil on the outer surface of dough so that it does not become dry while resting.
  9. Lightly knead the dough the next morning or after you have kept it for 3 to 4 hours.

Frying mangalore buns

  1. Take small to medium sized balls from the dough and roll into round circle or poori having about 4 inch diameter. Don't roll them thin but keep medium thickness.
  2. This way roll all the banana poori and arrnage them in a tray or plate without touching each other. Keep them covered with a kitchen towel until you begin to fry them.
  3. Heat any neutral flavored oil for deep frying. Keep the heat to medium to medium high.
  4. When the oil becomes medium hot, gently slid each poori in the oil. When the poori puffs up and become golden from one side then turn over gently using a slotted spoon.
  5. Fry the second side until golden and crisp. Turn over a few times if required for even cooking and color.
  6. While frying, take care that the banana buns does not break in oil otherwise they soak lot of oil.
  7. Remove them with a slotted spoon and drain on paper napkins to remove excess oil. Fry the remaining buns this way.
  8. Serve the mangalore buns, hot or warm plain or with milk or a cup of tea of coffee.

Kiyaan Singh’s Kitchen Note

Keep this recipe as a working base: cook once as written, then adjust spice, texture, and serving style for your own table.