Gole Bajje- Savory fritters/Culinary hoppers blog hop/ Southern Canara Cuisine

Hello Folks

This is my first ever post in 2016 so what is better than blogging with culinary hoppers . Our theme for this blog hop is Southern Canara cuisine . Before I start writing more about my recipe, how I made it and a small memory I have with this particular dish, a tiny introduction to Southern Canara cuisine

“The Kanara or Canara region, which is also known as Coastal Karnataka, comprises three coastal districts of Karnataka, namely Uttara Kannada, Udupi and Dakshina Kannadaand Kasaragod of Kerala in southwestern India. Kanara forms the southern part of the Konkan coast.”
Source: Wikipedia

The southern side of this region is Southern Canara which includes manglorean and udupi style cuisines (both are places from southern state of Karnataka in India). I was totally unaware of the cuisine but I have heard about few famous recipes like Gole Bajje , Chane Ghashi , Dal toi, Mangalore buns thanks to my frequent visit to Mangalore while I was growing up also my Konkani friend here , I am dedicating this post to my dear friend Anju.

I am from northern part of Kerala , Palakkad so we always used to visit mangalore , once on our way to Udupi Krishna temple or Mookambikai . This happened when I was 8 or 9 years old , it was our first trip to Udupi temple with my family . We took a train from palakkad to mangalore , and from mangalore we were planning to take bus , I clearly remember this because neither my mom or my dad spoke Kannada and they were really nervous about the trip. Luckily we met a family on our way , I vaguely remember that uncle was a retired army person. The only thing I remember about the conversation between him and my dad is Gole bajje , he was stressing that to my dad that we shouldn’t miss eating this Udupi special . Yess!!! we didn’t miss it after our temple visit , in the evening we did go to a tiny tea stall and we ate these hot hot fritters with some delicious tea.

When our culinary hoppers team decided about Southern Canara cuisine , I wanted to make Gole Bajje to share my little childhood experience and also of course my love for fried foods 😉 . I have a tiny secret to tell you all , the original recipe calls for sour yogurt , but unfortunately I didn’t have any at home and I was too lazy to go out a get some yogurt . When I was looking in my fridge I found some sour cream which I bought for weekend baking , I had leftovers from that . I was like why not use sour cream instead of yogurt and it worked like a charm . I had soft fluffy bajje which was crisp and melt in mouth at the same time .

I have adapted this recipe from the following link with few takes of mine , so this is not an authentic recipe
http://udupi-recipes.com/2012/08/goli-bajemangalore-bajji-recipe-how-to-prepare-goli-baje.html

Let’s see how to make this delicious fritter

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Prep Time – 2 hours
Cooking Time – 30  minutes
Serves- 4
Author- Parvathy V Nair

Ingredients

All purpose flour – 1 cup
Rice flour – 2 tbsp (Don’t skip it , it gives crispiness to the bajje)
Chick pea flour – 1 tbsp (Optional)
Green Chillies – 1 thinly sliced
Ginger- 1 teaspoon minced
Curry leaves – 1 sprig chopped
Baking soda- 1/4 teaspoon
Sour cream / Yogurt- 2 tablespoon
Salt- as needed
Oil – needed to deep fry
Water – as needed

Method

1. In a bowl place flour , rice flour , chick pea flour mix it with hands . To this add sour cream / yogurt , also add water little by little to make a batter . The batter should be very thicker than a pancake batter like a scoopable consistency at the same time thinner than a bread dough. Don’t panic if you added more water , add little more flour to bring it to that consistency.

2. Keep this batter aside for 2 hours , let the flavors all blend in

3. After 2 hours add green chilly , ginger and curry leaves to this batter .

4. Add baking soda and salt to it mix it using a fork .

5. Now I have a small technique to make this batter really fluffy to get spongy bajjes, using a hand beater slightly beat it for 5 minutes and you are good to fry these .

6. Heat oil in a wok or a deep frier . Using an ice cream scoop , scoop out the batters to get a round shape as the name indicates (Gole – Round).

7. Fry this in medium heat , so that the entire bajje gets cooked evenly without burning.

8. Serve these bajjes with your choice of chutneys . I served it with a coconut chutney , tomato chutney and cilantro chutney.

 

This recipe was a part of Culinary hoppers blog hop

Check here for more delicious Southern Canara recipes from us

Udupi Tomato Saru (Rasam) by Shobana 

Mangalore Sweet bun by Vani 

Sweet potato Kheer by Jayashree

Methi seeds thambuli/Fenugreek Seeds thambuli by Anu

Appe Payasa/Milk pudding with crisp fried semolina fritters by Piyali

Bitter gourd Palya/ Udupi Karela curry by Swati 

Pineapple Menasakai by Shubha 

Poppy seeds payasam/Gasagasa payasa/ Khus Khus Kheer by Padma 

Uppu Huli Dosa by Padma 

Neer Dosa by Padma 

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