व्यंजन

Jolada rottiಜೋಳದ ರೊಟ್ಟಿशाकाहारीBread

Soft sorghum bread eaten warm and folded, the base of every meal on the plain. A restaurant serving rotti oota will bring them one at a time off the tawa, and the count is not kept.

Badanekayi yennegaiಬದನೆಕಾಯಿ ಎಣ್ಣೆಗಾಯಿशाकाहारीMain

Small brinjals slit and packed with roasted groundnut, copra, sesame and Byadgi chilli, cooked until the masala oil separates. The Bayaluseeme version leans on groundnut and copra and is redder and less fierce than the sesame-forward one made further east.

Shenga chutney pudiशाकाहारीAccompaniment

Roasted groundnut pounded with garlic, chilli and salt into a coarse red powder, eaten with oil and rotti. The single most requested item in any parcel sent to a relative outside the region.

Agasi and gurellu chutney pudiशाकाहारीAccompaniment

Flaxseed and niger seed, roasted and pounded — darker, oilier and slightly bitter, and considered the more serious of the powders. Gurellu is grown on marginal land here and almost nowhere else in India in quantity.

JhunkaशाकाहारीMain

Gram flour cooked to a crumble with onion, garlic and green chilli. Cheap, fast, and eaten by choice as often as by necessity.

Kalu palyaशाकाहारीMain

Sprouted field beans, horse gram or moth beans cooked with copra and a little jaggery. Sprouting cuts the cooking time on a dry pulse, which mattered when fuel was gathered rather than bought.

Rotti ootaशाकाहारीThali

The full plain-country meal, served as a fixed assembly of eight or ten items around a stack of jowar rotti. It is the standard restaurant format across Hubballi, Dharwad, Gadag and Vijayapura, and the item that varies between houses is the chutney powder, not the curry.

GirmitशाकाहारीStreet

Puffed rice tossed with a wet green masala, onion, coriander, chopped tomato and a squeeze of lime, served in a paper cone with a fried long chilli beside it. Dharwad and Hubballi's own evening food, and distinct from the drier mandakki of the eastern plateau in that the masala here is wet.

कहाँ चखें: The carts around Dharwad's Jubilee Circle and Hubballi's Durgad Bail in the evening.

Menasinakayi bajjiशाकाहारीStreet

A long green chilli split, deseeded, stuffed with a salt-and-masala mix, dipped in gram batter and fried. Sold with girmit, and the two are effectively a single order.

Dharwad pedhaशाकाहारीSweet

A brown, grainy, faintly caramel milk sweet rolled in sugar. Its colour comes from taking the khova well past the point at which most pedha is stopped. Registered as a geographical indication.

कहाँ चखें: Line Bazar in Dharwad, where the original shop and its competitors are within fifty metres.

Belagavi kundaशाकाहारीSweet

Milk, sugar and a little curd cooked down for hours until the mass browns, caramelises and turns slightly granular. Sold by weight in flat trays and eaten warm.

KaradantuशाकाहारीSweet

A dense slab of jaggery, puffed edible gum, dry copra, dry fruit, dry ginger and edible camphor, cut into squares and sold wrapped. Gokak and Amingad each claim it and each makes it slightly differently — Gokak leans sweeter, Amingad drier and more gum-heavy.

Holige and shenga holigeशाकाहारीSweet

A flatbread rolled thin around a jaggery filling of cooked chana dal, sesame or roasted groundnut, and eaten under a pool of ghee. Festival food, and the standard second-day wedding sweet.

Dharwad phiniशाकाहारीSweet

A ball of fine fried wheat threads layered and dusted with powdered sugar, collapsing when pressed. Made seasonally and rarely found far from where it is fried.

The Vijayapura Dakhni plateमांसाहारीMain

In the old town, a Deccani Muslim kitchen of bagara rice, khima, mutton curry with whole spice, and khichda through Ramzan — an Adil Shahi inheritance that shares its vocabulary with Bidar and Hyderabad rather than with the rotti oota served two streets away.

Bilee saaru and mosaruशाकाहारीMain

A pale, mild dal saaru finished with curd, served at the end of a heavy rotti meal to close it. The sequence matters — the plain eats hot first and cool last.