The Tastes of South India: Khara Bun

Khara means spicy. These buns contain a mixture of onion , green chilli and coriander leaves (cilantro). Khara bun was one of our favorite snacks from the Iyengar bakery at Mysore's Ursu (DD Urs) road. After a busy morning of shopping we would hop into Iyengar bakery for these fresh buns which would be available in the afternoon ... hmmm so yummy. I miss them so much here.

Never really thought of baking them as I was a little apprehensive about the result. For me baking has always seemed like a difficult challenge.
Few days back when I was blog hopping, I saw a recipe of cumin bread here. I should say it was a real inspiration for me to bake as the instructions were very simple. I started to buy the ingredients thinking of baking the same bread but on the D-day I remembered the khara bun and thought why not change the recipe a bit and make the buns instead.

Here is the result of my first baking.

Ingredients:
Maida/All purpose flour - 1 cup
Wheat (I used the whole grain wheat) - 1 cup
Sugar - 2-3 tsp
Salt - 2-3 tsp
Dry yeast - 11/2 tsp
Unsalted butter - 1 tbsp
Olive oil
Water - 3/4 cup

For onion mixture:
Onion chopped - 1 big
Green chilli chopped - 1-2
Cumin seeds - 3 tsp
Coriander/cilantro leaves - 4-5 tbsp

Method:
Heat 1 tbsp olive oil and add the cumin seeds. Then add the chilli and onion and fry till the onion turns golden. Add 1 tsp salt and mix well. Remove from the stove and add the coriander leaves and mix well. Keep this aside.

Heat water till it is lukewarm. To this add sugar, butter and little olive oil. Then add yeast to it. Leave it at a warm place for 10mins till yeast becomes active.
Then to this add the flour, onion mixture, remaining salt and knead it to a dough. Add more water if required. If water is more then you can add little flour to adjust the consistency. Knead the dough for 10 mins.

Leave this in a warm place for 1.5 hours till the dough doubles in size.
Take out the dough on to a flat surface and knead for a minute or two. Shape it up into buns and place on a greased baking tray. Leave it for another 45 mins.