At first glance, this may look like a ghetto attempt at the familiar soup or chili in a bread bowl, but in fact, this is my first attempt at creating a popular Durban street food called Bunny Chow. There are many stories behind the origins of this interesting dish, one of them being that during apartheid, certain racial groups were prohibited from going to certain restaurants, hence a way of serving take out curry in a hollowed out loaf of bread was created. Another story suggests that Indian caddies in need of a quick bite could grab a ‘bunny’ and have something portable since there were no styrofoam containers or paper plates. In any case, Bunny Chow, more commonly referred to as “bunny” was born. 

Typically, the curry found in a bunny is usually a veggie curry of beans or a meat curry with mutton. My curry was a simple, but flavourful wild buffalo curry made with a blend of spices from the masala daba. Coriander seeds, ground cumin, garam masala, cayenne and turmeric make the base of this curry with crushed tomatoes to make a nice gravy. I cooked the buffalo in the pressure cooker until the meat was tender. Since buffalo is very lean, I mounted the gravy at the last moment with a touch of butter. Finally, some peas for colour and I had my curry. 

For the bread, I just picked up an uncut loaf of fresh bakery bread and divided it into quarters. I dug out the inside of the loaf and set it aside. This is called the ‘virgin’ and is placed on top of the curry once you fill the loaf. In South Africa, taking someone else’s virgin is a serious offense. I’m not kidding.

To accompany my bunny, I made this delicious and super fast lemon pickle. It was a recipe from Jamie Oliver that I tweaked for a little variety and colour contrast. All you do is chop up a whole lemon, peel and all and about a quarter of a lime for colour. I cooked some coriander seed in a small pan of oil then added a chopped chili pepper, some turmeric and finally the citrus. I cooked the whole thing, tossing gently for about 15 seconds, then added some chopped cilantro. Done. It was very bright and refreshing with spicy and savoury notes from the coriander and chili. The best thing is that this pickle will last for a couple months in the fridge and probably get better. I will be featuring this recipe in a future episode of The Aimless Cook, so stay tuned and have fun in the kitchen!

J