Perennial favourite Malu Paan or fish buns, Sri Lankan Style

I learnt to make buns when I attended cookery classes with a lovely lady Mrs Soma Gunawardena who conducted classes from her home in Nugegoda. Her daughter was a close friend and she made me interested in cooking on which I had no interest whatsoever when I was about 15 and wasting time after my GCE O/Ls.

 

 

Soma Auntie taught us to make bread dough by hand, letting yeast rice to a foam in a sugar water solution, beating the mix with a wooden spoon and kneading the dough till satiny. From that mound of soft dough, we made maalu paan ( fish buns), mince filled mas paan (meat buns), biththara seeni sambal paan - buns filled with caramelised onion and half a boiled egg and filled plain buns with a sausage, lettuce, tomato and sauce to make a hot dog and also used the same dough to create plain dinner rolls as well as a whole range of rolls, twisted, plaited, a clover leaf roll and rolls sprinkled with seeds. For the bunch of us girls who were mostly school friends, it was such magic to learn all these tricks and I wrote down the recipe in a CR book with a blue cover which lived with me for the next 40 odd years and is still somewhere in the house several oceans away.

 I make the dough mostly in a bread maker using the instructions to add whatever ingredients but I still follow Soma Auntie's recipe which I have modified slightly for bread maker use. I also use breadmaker or easy yeast and don't allow the yeast to rise.

 I now make smaller versions of rolls for health reasons and my maalu paan has now become another of my signature dishes that I take for parties, gatherings and especially make for our pirith ceremonies or wherever finger food is served.

I will give you instructions for making the dough using the conventional by hand method as well as using a breadmaker.

Conventional method:

about 500 -650 gms of plain flour, sifted (this amount varies so hard to give an exact quantity)
2.5 tsps. yeast (if you are not using quick yeast or breadmaker yeast, dissolve the yeast in about 1/8 cup of water to which a little sugar is added, stir and let to foam for about 15 mts)
3 tsps. sugar
2 tsps. salt
1 1/4 cups milk or milk and water warmed
1 tbsp. butter (you can use margarine or olive oil but I don't use margarine in my cooking)
1 medium egg


Place the warm milk in a large mixing bowl and add the butter. Let the butter dissolve and when the milk is hand-hot (you can dip a finger into it without being burnt), add the sugar and salt and the egg and the softened yeast. Add about 1/3 of the flour and yeast (if not using softened yeast) and beat well with a wooden spoon for about 100 strokes. You can use the door hook attachment of your mixer for this too.

When the mixture is well beaten, add about half a cup of flour mixing well after each addition. Add sufficient flour until you get a soft dough that you can knead. Turnout onto a floured board or kitchen work surface. Rest for 5 mts and knead well with both hands (I usually oil my hands) for about 5-10 mts, pulling towards you and then slapping away from you. This can be a very therapeutic exercise. Add more flour carefully if the dough sticks. The dough should be elastic and should form a ball when done.

Place the dough back in the bowl and cover with cling film or a wet cloth and leave to rise until double in size in a warm place. I usually keep it for about half a day but not as long as overnight.

Form into shapes as described below, leave to rise again for an hour, glaze and bake.

Breadmaker method

630 gms of plain flour, sifted
2.5 tsps. breadmaker yeast
3 tsps. sugar
2 tsps. salt
350 ml milk or milk and water warmed
1 tbsp. butter (you can use margarine or olive oil but I don't use margarine in my cooking)
1 medium egg
1 crushed Vitamin C tablet or half a tsp of bread improver (you can buy this from speciality shops) - this is optional but it helps the rolls to keep their shapes well

Warm the milk in the microwave or stove top and add the butter. Leave until its hand hot.

Place the sugar and salt in the breadmaker and add the milk which is not overly hot. Add the egg Then add the flour and the yeast and bread improver on top of the flour. Use the dough cycle to create dough. Mine takes 1.5 hours to knead, prove and rise.

Once the dough is risen use your fish or meat filling to make buns. For fish buns, I usually make them into triangular shapes, meat in elongated shape and vegetable as round buns. You can also use a tsp of seeni sambol and a half or quarter of boiled egg to make seeni sambal and egg buns.

Divide the dough into small pieces about the size of a small egg. Flatten out by hands or roll out to a circle. Place the filling in the centre and fold the dough and pinch edges and place each bun seam side down on a baking paper lined baking sheet as you go. Follow the pictures for different shapes.



Roll out dough into a small circular shape



Approximate size of rolled dough demonstrated using a pen
 



Please a teaspoonful of the filling in the centre of the dough

follow the pics to form a triangular shape. place the roll, seam sides down on baking sheet
 



Fold two opposite sides together and pinch them and then pinch the other two sides to make a triangular bun

 

buns ready to be glazed and baked

 

Make all the buns and leave to rise in the closed oven for about an hour. Glaze the tops of buns with egg wash  (egg yolk beaten with a tsp of water) or milk and bake in a 350 F or 180 C oven for about 15 mts until the buns are golden and done. Cool on a wire rack.

Fillings
1 Fish filling

 2 large onions chopped
3 med potatoes, cooked, peeled and mashed
3 green chillies
a few curry leaves
1 tsp ginger garlic paste
1 can fish (I use pink salmon or tuna but you can use whatever you have or flaked cooked fresh fish)
1 tsp unroasted curry powder
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp ground black pepper
salt to taste
juice of 1 lemon or lime
a dash of Worcestershire sauce (opt)
1 tbsp. oil

Heat oil in large pan and saute onion till soft but not brown. Add the ginger garlic paste, curry leaves and green chillies and fry for another minute or so. Add the flaked fish and seasoning. Cook till combined for another 2-3 mts. Add the potatoes and mix well. Check seasoning an adjust if necessary. Add the lemon juice and sauce and cool.


2 Meat filling
Made a similar filling with ground chicken/beef or lamb adding the mince or finely cut meat to the onion and following the same procedure. Use roasted curry powder instead of unroasted for meat filling.

(makes about 24-36 medium buns or about 50 cocktail sized buns)

Different shapes of buns:

From L to R: round shaped vegetable bun, elongated Seeni Sambal or Seenisambal and egg bun, rectangular  meat bun and triangular fish bun - before glazing and baking

From L to R: vegetable, seeni sambal, meat and fish bun after baking - apologies about the too dark colour of buns as I left them a bit too long in oven.

Hope it works out. If you have any questions please message me on FB or blog.

Take a can of Jack fruit and cook it three ways.....

One of the followers of my facebook page asked me what he can do with a can of Jackfruit (polos). He spoke about the polos curry his Amma made which made me nostalgic and his enthusiasm about finding a couple of cans of Polos in an Asian shop was so refreshing.

I was thinking of how excited I used to feel when I found a Sri Lankan vegetable such as Bandakka or thalana batu when I first moved overseas. Once I paid an exorbitant $32 a kilo for a handful of Thibbatu just out of that nostalgia and made a mallun out of it and ate it with rice with so much glee.

So in response to your request, my dear brother from Saudi Arabia, I have come up with three recipes for you to cook using canned Polos.

Polos curry - Jackfruit curry

1 can jackfruit
1 large onion chopped finely
4 cloves of garlic and 1 inch piece of ginger crushed together
a few green chillies
1 tsp curry powder
half tsp turmeric powder
salt to taste
1 tsp chilli powder
1 can coconut milk
a few curry leaves - dried is fine
a few pieces of Rampe (dried, frozen - its called Pandan leaves and is found frozen in Asian shops)
a couple of pieces of goraka (if you cant find it, just use some lemon juice after cooking or cut up
tomatoes to add the sourness)

Drain the jackfruit from can. Wash and drain well.

1. Saute the onions, green chillies and curry leaves in a little oil over medium heat. 
2. Add the ginger garlic paste and the curry powder, turmeric and chilli powder. Stir for a few seconds.
3. Add about 1/4 of the coconut milk and half a cup of water and bring to the boil. Add the goraka and the jackfruit pieces.
4 Cover and simmer on very low heat for about half an hour. Uncover, add the rest of the thick coconut milk and cook until its done.

If you have a slow cooker you can make a wonderfully tender curry using it. Just follow the instructions from 1-2. Transfer the contents to slow cooker and all the ingredients except water and cook on slow for about 4-5 hours.

Polos Mallun - Jackfruit with coconut

1 can Polos
1 red onion chopped very finely
a few curry leaves
a few green chillies sliced
3 cloves garlic
half tsp mustard seeds or mustard powder
half tsp ground black pepper
half tsp salt
a few pieces goraka
half tsp turmeric
half tsp unroasted curry powder
half a cup of dessicated or grated coconut

Drain the polos and wash it and drain it well. Cut into very tiny pieces.

Place the polos pieces, curry leaves, goraka and a little turmeric. Sprinkle a little water and add some salt. Cover and cook for about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile grind the onion, garlic, green chilli, mustard seeds and black pepper with salt and add the coconut and grind well. Don't add any water. Use a food processor or a mortar and pestle to do this,

Once the polos is cooked, add the coconut mixture and stir well using a fork or chop stick. Cook on very low heat. Add some lemon or lime juice if you don't use goraka.


Polos achcharu - Jackfruit pickle

1 can jackfruit
100 gms small red onions (shallots) or a red onion if you cannot get shallots
a few fresh green chillies whole
1 cup white vinegar
half a tsp turmeric
1 tsp salt
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp ground mustard


Wash and drain the Jackfruit and cut into small pieces (about 1 cm) not as tiny as for the mallun. Drain on kitchen paper for a few minutes.
Peel shallots or cut onion into small pieces the same size as polos. Make a slit in each green chillie but don't slice through. Dry with kitchen paper and keep aside.

Heat the vinegar in a stainless steel pot or clay pot Add the turmeric, chilli, mustard powders and salt, Bring to the boil. Add the onions, chillies and polos and stir well  Take it off the heat and pour into a glass bottle which has been sterilised and dried.  Leave overnight before using. Keeps in fridge for a few weeks.

Easy to make Milk Rice (Kiribath) in a rice cooker

Kiri bath literally translated is milk rice and is Sri Lanka's most famous festive dish without any debate.

The prominence of milk rice eaten at auspicious occasions may go back to the story of it being offered to Lord Buddha whose first meal after enlightenment was Kiri pidu offered to him by a village damsel called Sujatha. The venue of this is still a much visited stop by Sri Lankan Buddhist pilgrims to India.

Kiri bath is usually the first food fed to babies, is cooked at the auspicious time on New Years day to be the star of the New Year table; offered as Buddha pooja to Lord Buddha; fed by bridegrooms to brides at their wedding, a must at any auspicious event; even cooked on the first day of every month to bring luck which was a custom my mother and her mother before her practiced till their deaths and which I tend to follow - if I am not too busy to forget it even after living out of Sri Lanka for almost 4 decades.

Kiribath for breakfast fit for royalty with Fish Ambul Thiyal and Katta Sambal

Milk rice is similar and yet is different to the coconut rice served in other parts of Asia. It is not cooked in coconut milk from the beginning as coconut rice is and is moulded and flattened. It is one of the simplest dishes to make and is usually a major hit with my non Sri Lankan friends.

Milk rice is usually a breakfast dish but there is no reason why you cannot eat it for lunch or dinner as I do.

We Lankans eat Kiri bath with an assortment of side dishes such as seeni sambol (a kind of caramelised onion spiced with chilli, spices and cooked in tamarind and coconut milk with a little sugar added to it for that extra touch), Katta sambal or lunu miris, a hot concoction of ground salt, onion, chilli and Maldive fish (see my blog post on Katta Sambal), fish or meat curry or my favourite canned fish or Salmon curry. A sweeter version of Kiri bath is made by forming balls of milk rice moulded using either a tea cup or banana leaf to balls slightly elongated on both ends and with a sweet filling of Pani pol, cooked spicy filling made out of grated coconut and treacle or jaggery. Traditionally a bark from the Arecanut tree (puwak kola patha) was used for this but I don't know if they even exist now.

A diamond of Kiribath served with Katta sambal and fish Ambul Thiyal
 

I have recently modernised this dish by making Imbul kiribath stacks made with disks of milk rice with a layer of Pani pol in between. You can also make a savoury version using Katta sambal as a filling and that's the topic of another blog post when I get around to making them.

Now for my recipe for making it with or without a rice cooker.

A plate of Kiribath
 

Rice cooker version

Ingredients:
2 cups short grain, jasmine or Kiribath rice or even sushi rice (which are stickier versions of rice)
3 cups of water
1.5 cups thick canned coconut milk or coconut cream
1.5 tsp salt

Wash rice. Drain. Add the water and cook till done. Then add the coconut milk and salt and switch on back to Cook and cook till the milk is absorbed.

Spoon into a flat plate quickly and flatten out with the back of a spoon and shape  to form a flat raised mound, flattening the tops and sides alternately using either a banana leaf/folded piece of foil or wax paper. Cool and cut into squares or diamonds.

Serve with an assortment of side dishes such as Katta sambal, seeni sambal, fish or meat curry.

Stove top version

Ingredients:
2 cups short grain, jasmine or Kiribath rice or even sushi rice (which are stickier versions of rice)
3 cups of water
1.5 cups thick canned coconut milk or coconut cream
1.5 tsp salt

Wash rice well and place in saucepan with the water. Bring the water to the boil and cook rapidly till most of the water evaporates. Lower heat to very low and cover saucepan with lid and cook on very low heat for about 10 mts without opening the lid and the temptation to peek. Rice should be almost cooked.
Add the salt and coconut milk and cover and cook on low heat till cooked. Use the same method to flatten the rice on a plate.