Easter isn’t Easter without Hot Cross Buns.  The smell of the fragrant spices and fruit as you bake/toast them is brilliant.  I wasn’t quite sure how Hot Cross Buns fitted in with the fasting during Lent, but Wikipedia came to my aid. 

Apparently Hot Cross Buns originated with the Saxons, with the cross dividing the bun into four, with each quarter representing one of the four phases of the moon.  Christians, who traditionally eat them on Good Friday, believe the cross is representative of the Crucifixion.  Due to their religious connotations, protestant England attempted to ban bakers from selling the buns.  However, due to their popularity, the ban was not successful and Queen Elizabeth  I passed a law which only permitted the sale of Hot Cross Buns at Easter and Christmas.

Hot cross buns belong on the list of things that you can easily buy, but taste so much better home made, along with mince pies, fresh bread and marmalade.  We used Nigella’s recipe, although with some minor tweaks (lots more spices for one thing, and half as many, but twice buns for another).  It would have been useful to have a piping bag for the crosses, but all things considered they were a triumph.   They had more fruit than the average shop bought bun and a delicious glaze on the top. Next time we will increase the fruit and spice content even more!

First I thought about  the boundaries of the ingredients themselves – Leeks don’t vary that much that I know of. Cheese provides a lot of room to manoeuvre with. Eggs encompass many different types and a variety of cooked forms, I’m not that familiar with their tastes so I was slightly reluctant to experiment. On a side note, that reminds me of Andrew Zimmern’s show with Balut (don’t look if you’re squeamish about food!).

I eventually settled upon trying to recreate an egg curry we had for breakfast in on the backwaters in Kerala, with some stuffed leek and paneer kulchas. I might need to explain myself: Curry for breakfast? Yep, it’s not like British-style curry though – far easier on the taste buds. Egg in curry? You might not get it in that many Indian restaurants in Britain, it’s fairly common though (I think it’s more of a south Indian thing) – they’re usually hard boiled. What’s paneer? It’s an Indian cheese, although I see it as having a taste and texture closer to tofu. It doesn’t melt either. Kulcha? These are new to me too, they originate from the Punjab and are like small Naan (an Indian bread).

Shopping for ingredients was a little fun, I popped over to the nearest asian area to track down some paneer and curry leaves. I tend to make paneer myself (it’s dead easy), but I wanted to minimise my cooking time. In the shop I visited, I ended up finding some Welsh Paneer! I couldn’t find any curry leaves though so I asked the guy at the till, after which he pulled out a bag from under the till. Maybe it’s the asian equivalent of tofu in Chinese shops? When I got home I was a little bermused by the episode, and unsure if ‘curry leaves’ had another meaning. Looks like curry leaves though, I also noticed he didn’t charge for them!

Ingredients

Kulcha dough

• 5 oz wholemeal flour
• 5 oz plain flour
• 2 oz cottage cheese
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 2 oz butter
• water

Kulcha filling

• 2 small leeks (or 1 large), finely sliced
• 1 green chilli
• 3 oz paneer, grated
• salt

Egg curry

• 4 eggs, hard boiled, shelled
• 1 large onion, sliced into long strips
• 2 1/2 tsp corriander powder
• 1 tsp chilli powder
• 1/2 tsp tumeric
• 1/2 tsp garam masala
• 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
• handful of curry leaves
• 2 tsp tomato puree
• 400 ml coconut milk

Method

1. Start with the dough. Mix all ingredients together until you’ve got a dough. Leave covered at room temperature for 1 hour.
2. Lightly fry the leeks, this will bring out their flavour. Once translucent, take off the heat and mix with other ingredients.
3. The dough will provide 4 kulchas. Divide the mixture into 8ths and mould into circles ~4″ diameter (beer mat size). Top with kulcha stuffing and cover with another piece, pressing edges together and removing any air inside.
4. Slowly cook the kulcha at a low heat in a lightly buttered pan until golden.
5. Mix the corriander powder, tumeric and chilli powder with water into a smooth paste.
6. Dry fry mustard seeds and curry leaves for a minute. Drop a dash of oil and add the onions. When transparent add the tomato puree. Cook for a minute and add the paste from before.
7. Add the eggs for a minute and mix to absorb the colours/flavours. Finally, add the coconut milk, allow to simmer for 10 minutes. 2 minutes before the end add the garam masala.

Verdict

I served it up with half a portion of rice each with the kulchas on the side. The curry was pretty nice but I’ve still got a bit of tweaking before it’s as good as the stuff in Kerala. I might slice the eggs in half to absorb more flavour. The kulchas turned out fairly well too but I think it would have worked better if I’d stuck to my initial idea of stuffed parathas which would have been a bit lighter. A lot of recipes for Indian bread mention using a Tava.

We had a bit of a slow morning so I decided to try it out. Although very simple, the results certainly warrant mentioning on here. I followed Mario’s directions and just mixed an approximate 1:4 ratio of date syrup to tahini. I’ve seen some recipes that also mention adding lemon juice. I served it with a lightly warmed (but not toasted), sliced Seeded Bloomer. I also made Espresso from some coffee we got back from Mount Elgon (which I added a touch of sugar in the middle-eastern way).

I’d describe the taste similar to a sweet peanut butter with a hint of dates. Jenny mentioned Nutella which I probably shouldn’t mention (we don’t want to associate ourselves with Nutella). It was really delicious but possibly slightly too sweet for me by the end, but I don’t really eat sweet stuff and I had put sugar in my coffee too! Next time I’ll try less syrup, I don’t think it really needed lemon juice (although I have to try too). It would probably also be improved with flat bread rather than the bloomer.

It reminded me of a snack a friend of mine from UAE prepared. It was a form of dates somewhere between whole dried dates and the syrup, apparently it was made with the highest quality dates – we ate it with a flat bread.

Whilst I was making it I also tried some Tahini by itself, usually we only tend to use it for making Hummus or eat it in Falafel wraps. It’s quite nutty but also slightly bitter (I like). I see that some people have it on bread instead of peanut butter – another thing to try.