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.