What comes to your mind when we say 'bunny chow'? Most of you will instantly relate it to chowmein (desi noodles). At least, we did the same when we first heard of bunny chow. But to our surprise, it turned out to be a delicious bread-based dish.! You heard us. Bunny chow is a quintessential South African street food made with bread loaf and gravy. Sounds interesting; isn't it? As per food historians, bunny chow (often referred to as bunny) find its roots in the Indian community residing in Durban, South Africa. Some theories also state that the word 'bunny' came from 'baniya' (the merchant community of India) and 'chow' is a colloquial term for food in South Africa. It is said, the dish was first created at an India restaurant in Durban, run by a 'baniya' family. Bunny chow then travelled throughout the country and found different versions of it across communities.
Traditionally, bunny chow is made out of a quarter loaf of bread that is filled with some vegetarian curry. However, today we find beans curry, chicken curry, lamb curry used as filling in the dish. Other varieties found across the country use chips with curry gravy, fried sausage, cheese, eggs and more.
During our research about this unique bunny chow dish, we came across a recipe that demonstrates how you can make it at home with some easily available ingredients. This recipe has been shared by food vlogger Ananya Banerjee in her YouTube channel (named Ananya Banerjee). Let's take a look:
Bunny Chow Recipe | How To Make This Indo-South African Street Food:
In the video, Chef Ananya demonstrated how to make chicken bunny chow. First, you have to prepare a chicken gravy using oil, onion, tomato, ginger garlic paste, potato, jeera-dhania powder, kasoori methi, fresh cream et al. You can also customise the spices as per your flavour profile.
Now, take a load of bread and scoop it out from the centre. Fill the centre with the chicken gravy. The bread will instantly soak all the goodness of the gravy and turn super delicious. Garnish with some more kasoori methi and serve hot.
You can say, this dish is more like keema pav or pav bhaji, which the gravy filled inside the bread.
Watch the step-by-step recipe video of bunny chow below:
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Try this dish at home and let us know how you liked it.