Masala bun

My DH would often remember khara buns from Bangalore/Mysore. I’m not too familiar with them and when I saw these I thought these are the khara buns. Khara meaning hot, could also mean “masala” according to me . So I set off to make these. Turns out these are not khara buns, nonetheless they were well received in my house. So mission accomplished!

I too liked them and I think they’re especially good as to-go food. They’ve a yummy potato filling!

 

To make the buns:

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups All purpose flour
• 1/4 cup Milk
• 1/4 cup water (add if more needed)
• 3/4 tblsp Active dry yeast
• 1 tblsp sugar
• 3/4 tsp Salt
• 3 tblsp Olive oil
• Chilli powder
• Chopped coriander
  

For the filling:

• 3-4 Boiled potatoes (cubed)
• 1/2 cup chopped onions
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1/2 tsp chilli powder
• 1 tsp amchur (or mango powder)
• 3 tsp oil

Method:

1. Warm the milk,add sugar to it and mix well. Add the yeast to it and mix well. Keep aside.
2. Take flour and make a hole,add water,olive oil,salt in it and the yeast completely dissolved in the milk. Add the chopped coriander and chilli powder.
3. Mix and make a smooth dough,keep in a warm place covered with a cling wrap for an hour.
4. Meanwhile make the filling. For the filling:
1. Heat the oil and saute the onions till golden brown.
2. Add turmeric, chilli powder and fry for a 1 minute.
3. Add potatoes and mix. Add the amchur.
4. Mix well and if required mash the potatoes. That makes it easy to fill the buns.
5. After an hour, the dough must’ve risen. Make 6 equal balls from it.
6. Flatten the balls and take a tablespoon or so of the filling and then wrap it in the dough.
7. Preheat the oven to 375 Fahrenheit and let the stuffed buns rise in the meantime.
8. After the oven has preheated, bake the buns for 17-20 minutes.
9. Delicious buns are ready!

Cutting for stone

Author: Abraham Varghese

The story starts off in the most morbid and dreary manner you can imagine. So much so that at one point I thought of not pursuing it but something kept propelling me. And for the good! It turned out to be very engrossing!

An Indian nun falls in love with a British doctor in Addis Ababa resulting into two twins. The mother dies during delivery and the father of the twins is distraught and flees. So they’re adopted by a doctor colleague and the story is narrated by one of the them. I think the central theme of the story is “love”. Every turn in the novel is because one character loved another – it could be motherly love, fatherly, brotherly or of young hearts. The twins grow together and apart; but both grow up to be doctors. In different parts of the world. The narrator in US and his brother in Egypt. The twists and turns in the story keep you deeply seated. I think the story is very well written – I could almost feel myself with the characters in the novel. Just bear with the first few pages and you won’t regret!

Bottom line: A wonderful novel!

Letter from Sendai, Japan

I came across this letter through another blogger and felt so pleased after reading it. It was such a big coincidence that before reading this letter I was reading another blog that had outlined qualities of the Japanese, exhibited in this massive natural calamity. Both the posts had the same sentiments – there was no chaos, people were helping each other, people were sharing what they had – there was no drama. Both left me in awe of the Japanese! I bow to them, in all honesty!

When Katrina happened, we saw videos and photos of how the gas stations and stores were looted. It shocked me. In this country where we had so many systems working based on “honor”, how could people do that. This is the country I realized that honesty could be common to common people. So the looting videos led to me believe that in the face of disaster, every human behaves the same way. He can only think of one’s survival.

Until I read the above two posts.

They totally changed my view.

Not only are the Japanese technologically most advanced, they’re so behaviorally too. We must all, this whole world minus Japan, study them to learn how they got be so.